The Butler's Daughter
by FakeName13
Summary: Ciel, the Queen's Guard Dog, is struggling with the latest case involving the criminal underworld. There are no clues, no witnesses, and seemingly no way to find anything out...Added to that, he must still fulfill his duties and obligations as the Earl of Phantomhive. And added to that, a mysterious woman arrives with a little girl, a girl who's the daughter of his butler...
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note:

Warning: This story contains numerous OCs.

Some information may be historically inaccurate.

I own nothing.

 _It was a well-built house, not falling apart yet, but there were some definite signs of wear-and-tear. He sighed. He didn't want to do this. But he had to. They had a contract._

 _He steeled himself, put on his most winning smile, and knocked on the door. The woman answered almost immediately, blushing at the sight of him._

 _"Y-Yes? Can I help you?"_

 _"Perhaps…" he said slyly. "May I please come in?"_

 _The woman giggled nervously and held the door open._

 _"Of course."_

 _He smiled at her again and entered the house: not very well-lit, but clean enough. He resisted the urge to groan. Stupid contract; he really didn't want to do this._

 _"C-Can I get you anything? Tea, water?"_

 _"Oh, no thank you," he said, sitting down at a chair, crossing his legs, giving her that irresistible smile…_

 _The woman giggled again and began twisting a lock of her hair._

 _"So…What are you doing here? C-Can I help you, sir?"_

 _"That depends on what you're willing to do for me…"_

 _He left several hours later, annoyed and missing one of his socks and his right glove._

"Thank María that's over with," _he thought._ "I will never have to deal with that woman ever again."


	2. Chapter 2

Another day, another case, same old, same old, but this particular case was a bit different from the others: a locked room murder, a whole ballroom of people dead, no witnesses, no marks on the bodies, no clues to discover whodunit.

Ciel, Earl of Phantomhive, frowned at the papers in his hand. The mansion where the incident had occurred had been shut down to prevent the curious public from wandering in and interfering, which meant that all access was limited. It was a race to get to the scene of the crime before Scotland Yard did—unfortunately, it seemed that the Yard would win.

"What do you think?" Ciel asked his butler.

Sebastian Michaelis shrugged.

"I'm sure that I would be able to discover something if I was allowed inside, but as the situation remains…"

"…You can't get in," Ciel finished. "And you can't break in or sneak in or something?"

"Breaking in would tamper with evidence, my Lord. I would attempt to disguise myself and infiltrate that way, but unfortunately security is tighter at the area than usual. Several guards circulate through shifts; a new person would be caught almost immediately."

"So what shall we do?" Ciel sighed. "I can't get in because I'm an earl, you can't get in because you're too conspicuous…"

"We would need someone small, light, and lithe; someone who can charm their way into the mansion and go completely unnoticed; someone attentive enough to discover clues; someone smart and quick-thinking to get themselves out of a pinch if necessary; someone who's brave enough to do such a thing."

"Such a person seems nearly impossible to find; added to that, they must have loyalty to Phantomhive." Ciel sighed again. "Have the bodies been removed from the mansion?"

"No, they're being treated inside one of the rooms."

"And we can't get the Undertaker inside."

"Even if we could, which we can't, he'd have to be able to report back to us, which he won't be able to."

Ciel sighed irritably for the third time and tossed the papers aside. He picked up another paper, this time more formal, with fancier writing. An invitation to a garden party.

"Do I have to go?" Ciel asked, unable to keep out a slight tone of whininess.

"My Lord, social engagements are important to attend, particularly for someone of your status. There shouldn't be any dancing—at least, not too much," Sebastian hid a smirk. "And you might meet someone important—someone who could assist the company."

"Alright, fine, I'll go!" Ciel snapped, throwing aside the invitation. "Order me a new suit of clothes or something. I assume that this is a formal event."

Sebastian bowed, said "yes my Lord", and left the room.


	3. Chapter 3

"Finally."

 _The woman was almost unable to control her excitement. This was it. After nine months of awkwardness and agony, it would all be over. It would all be worth it. She could hardly wait._

 _There was another push and she gasped. There was no one else in the house; she would have to go through it alone. Another push._

 _Who would it be? A sweet little boy or a darling baby girl? She couldn't decide which she wanted more, although she had to confess that this baby had been a bit odd. Every now and then blood would leak out, which she wasn't sure was right. She had talked to other women who had children; they had all said that they had stopped bleeding once they had gotten pregnant. And before, her bleeding periods were more-or-less regular. These bleeding periods weren't regular at all: sometimes she'd get them for two weeks straight and then go for a month and a half without them._

 _Another push. She heaved and tried to smile. No one had said this would be easy. A single mother, giving birth alone? It was a challenge in and of itself! But it didn't matter. She knew who the father was. Once she presented the child to him, she was sure that he would love it and they could all be a family together._

 _One last push and then something extremely strange happened: the thing_ slid out _. One moment it was there, the next it wasn't. Was it over already? That was easier than expected—much, much easier. Did something go wrong?_

 _She lay there for a few minutes, panting. The house was completely silent. That was odd too. Weren't newborn babies supposed to cry? What had happened? Was it dead?_

 _Fearing the worst, the woman laboriously sat up to examine her child. She stared at it in horror, too terrified to scream._

 _It was small and thin, so thin. She could easily count every one of its little ribs; its sweet little fingers were skeletal. It had nails, long and sharp and black. She had never heard of anyone giving birth to a child with black nails, but then again, she had never heard of anyone giving birth to a child with wings._

 _Because it did have wings. Leathery, black, clawed, bat-like wings that were longer than the whole body. And hair. Wet black hair that covered the whole body like some kind of sick dress. It opened up its mouth to yawn; the woman could see that it had two teeth, teeth that curved backwards like fangs, teeth that extended past the chin. The monster opened up its eyes—shining blue eyes with diamond-like pupils. It blinked up at her for a few minutes, then stretched its skeletal hands towards her. Its unnaturally long hair parted like a wave. The thing already had breasts and a figure._

 _So it was a girl._

 _But what a girl! This thing wasn't human. It wasn't normal. It wasn't natural. The woman slowly got up and began to pace the room, clutching her stomach (which still felt a little odd). What had happened? What had she done? She turned to look at the thing, still lying on the table, watching her with those eerie, unholy eyes, and thought that she would vomit. She had thought that she would immediately love the little bundle of joy, but instead all she felt was repulsion. Repulsion and disgust. She wanted to throw it into the fire and burn it. But she couldn't do it. She had felt it; she had nourished it; damnit, she had_ given birth to it _! She couldn't toss her only child into the fire; she would undoubtedly be arrested for murder. Naturally she would be caught; she had bragged to everyone she knew that she was pregnant; they would want to know what had happened to the baby. And what had happened to the baby? It didn't look at all like her; it didn't look at all human…_

 _Her father. The girl's father. Of course._

 _He had arrived only a short while ago and instantly became the Duke's right-hand man (the Duke was the one who ran and controlled and protected the village). She had always been suspicious of him, of that handsome young devil with the smirk and the eyes and the everything…_

 _The man wasn't human._

 _So his child wasn't human._

 _Half an hour passed in this way, with the woman pacing and worrying and fretting and trying to find a logical solution to it all. At some point she thought that she would take a look at the little beast again…_

 _It had changed in the last half-hour. Its nails were still black but not nearly so long or pointy. Its wings had vanished; its unnaturally long teeth had shrunk back into its mouth. They were still lethally sharp and they still curved backwards but at least they were properly inside, away from sight. Its hair was still long but now dry. It still retained its bust and figure; it blinked up at her with its deep blue eyes, now completely normal, with no shining and with round pupils._

 _The woman gingerly picked the thing up. It didn't make a sound; she shuddered at its thinness. Some fat had magically grown so it didn't look quite so skeletal but it still looked impoverished. She could still easily count all of its ribs._

 _She couldn't stand it anymore; she dumped the child in its crib, the crib that had been lovingly bought for a joyous expectation. But the expectation was no longer joyous, the crib was no longer a thing to be admired; both had been tainted by this…this…whatever the hell it was._

"A drink," _she thought a bit faintly._ "A drink will do me good. I just need a drink."

 _And she staggered outside, leaving her child alone in the now-cursed house._


	4. Chapter 4

The garden party was every bit as boring as Ciel Phantomhive had expected it to be. He hated most parties, but he held a particular loathing for garden ones. In most other parties, there were other men around to stand around with and discuss business and the economy—grown-up things. Garden parties consisted mostly of middle-aged women with too much makeup who pinched his cheeks and called him " _such_ a cutie!" The only other men around were the occasional husband who usually disappeared a few seconds after introductions, the servants, and some poor child that, like him, was forced to attend.

The women were discussing things that he had absolutely no interest in. Things like clothes and charity and how useless husbands and/or servants were. Ciel listened in a little bit when they were talking about all the various charities that they regularly donated to, looking for ideas to boost his own company's popularity, but most of the charities were either too girlish or just plain weird. Usually both. Charities like giving-old-garish-clothes-to-the-maids-so-they-can-live-fashionably-but-not-too-fashionably-because-we-don't-want-them-to-get-unnatural-ideas-and-upstage-their-clearly-vastly-superior-employers. Charities like sending money and food to starving children in Africa (in the next breath, they were discussing how annoying the little peasant children on the streets were). Apparently, the latest craze was adopting some sort of impoverished child and raising them as their own—but not letting them get _too_ close to the family, mind you; after all, they _are_ still dirty little mongrels and nothing could change that, no matter how hard the good, decent, hardworking women of this country tried to educate them. The whole thing seemed unnaturally pointless and boring, not to mention demeaning to the children.

"If you had a child," Ciel asked Sebastian when they were driving home, "and they could either live with you or be adopted by some middle-class woman, which would you pick?"

Sebastian smiled his what-a-silly-little-master smile.

"I confess that I'm not sure," he said, meaning that he didn't consider the question serious enough to deserve his partial attention. "I've never had the…honor…of having a child." His tone indicated that he didn't find children an honor at all, whether his or not.

Ciel leaned back in his seat with a sigh and crossed his arms.

"Well, at least it's finally over. I'll never have to go back _there_ again."

"Not for at least another year, my Lord."

Sebastian smiled at Ciel's glare.

"Did you find anything on the locked-room case yet?" Ciel finally asked.

"Nothing much, except that there's been another one."

 _"WHAT?!"_

"There's been another one," Sebastian repeated, removing a letter from his coat. "Same tragedy, different place. A mansion filled with dead people with no evidence of violence on them. The police are in hysterics, trying to find out the culprit. This mansion is even more sealed-off than the other one."

"So we have less of a chance of getting in," Ciel said, looking out the window. There was silence for a time. "Contact the Undertaker," he said. "See if he knows anything; see if he can find out anything. I want to know something and I want to know it _now._ "

"Of course my Lord."


	5. Chapter 5

_He frowned up at the house. He had never thought that he would return. But the woman had seemed desperate for him to come. He sighed and knocked on the door. He wanted to make this as quick as possible. Hopefully the woman wouldn't be crying, begging for him to love her, to take her back. He hated such scenes. They were so insulting to his intelligence and dignity._

 _He knocked again, this time more forcefully. The woman had answered promptly before. He wondered why she was making him wait; it was very irritating._

 _The door opened just as he was about to knock again. He took a double-take upon seeing the woman before him._

 _Was this the same woman? Was this the same house? The woman before him was filthy and ragged and reeked of cheap, stale alcohol. The house's interior was disgusting and dirty, with empty liquor bottles everywhere._

 _"Finally!" the woman bleated drunkenly. She grabbed his arm and yanked him into the house. He winced at the filth and almost vomited at the smell. Humans were more disgusting than he had thought. She had seemed to be a respectable woman at first. It had been less than a year since they had met. What could have changed her so drastically?_

 _She dragged him to another room and pointed at a crib at the other end of the room._

"Oh no…"

 _"Look!" she screamed, pushing him forwards towards the crib. "Look at what you've done! Look at what hell you've given to me! Look at the monster that you've unleashed upon this world!"_

 _He knew the drill; he was about to protest that it wasn't his child, that she was drunk, that it was some other man's kid; he knew that desperate human women would do anything to get him back…_

 _But the woman was still pushing him with rather excessive violence. He had no choice but to peek into the cradle._

 _It was a girl, a little baby girl, not very old. She had long black hair and such pale skin; she must not have been eating right; she was only bones. She had huge black marks under her eyes; at first he thought that she must have been punched in her cheeks. But then she yawned, revealing her teeth and he realized what she was._

"A vampire. She must have given birth to a vampire."

 _He thought about it; he did have the genetics needed to create a vampire, but it was still impossible. It couldn't possibly be his. He was a respectable demon; the thought of him having a cambion was sickening._

 _The girl finished her yawn and looked up at him with huge blue eyes. Like all vampires, she wasn't particularly physically pleasing, but she had nice eyes with long black eyelashes. She blinked up at him, as if wondering about him. He stared down at her; she did resemble him a little bit, but it was still impossible. The odds were against him. She must have slept with another unholy and sired a vampire. It wasn't his._

 _"It's not mine," he said, straightening back up, "and even if it was, I wouldn't accept her."_

 _The woman stared at him in shock._

 _"B-But...But she's yours! She has to be yours! Take back your demonic bitch and get her out of my sight this instant!"_

 _He ignored her and pushed her out of the way with his shoulder, heading for the door, ignoring her screams and her demands that he take the kid away with him._

 _He made it outside and began walking away. He could still hear the woman screaming in the house, and then he heard another noise:_

 _The sound of something smashing against something else and then a cry._

 _A little baby girl's shocked and pained wail._

 _He could have turned around._

 _He could have returned._

 _He could have helped that defenseless baby girl._

 _Instead he just kept walking._


	6. Chapter 6

They joined the countless others milling around the mansion, pushing their way through to reach the line of police officers holding back the throng.

"Excuse me," Ciel shouted at the nearest officer, "I am the Earl of Phantomhive and I have a letter from the Queen ordering me to investigate these strange occurrences. Please let me in!"

The officer shook his head.

"Can't!" he shouted back. "I have the strictest of orders to not allow anyone unfamiliar into the mansion!"

"But the Queen! I have a letter!"

"Sorry kid!" the officer shouted back. "I've had sixteen letters from the Queen and thirty-five earls try to get in here! Better luck next time!"

"The nerve of that man!" Ciel grumbled to Sebastian when they had gotten to a secluded area where they could survey the scene but talk normally. "Thinking that I was a common urchin trying to sneak into a crime scene. I ask you, do I look like a common urchin?"

Sebastian smirked.

"Is that a serious question, my Lord?"

"No. Don't answer it."

"If you insist."

Ciel frowned down at the sight. It was disgusting to watch. People were shoving each other and screaming and trying to get through the line of officers. The edges of the crowd were lined with broadside sellers, each trying to outshout the other, anxiously attempting to sell their lies and succeeding. In-between the broadside sellers were little ragged children, vainly offering oranges or little bunches of violets or old discarded newspapers. Ciel winced as one of them was pushed aside and fell into the mud, ruining their wares.

"Tell me, Sebastian, do you ever feel sorry for humans?"

"I do. Every now and then." He smirked at the scene before him. "The same way that you would pity a stray puppy, or a person in an asylum."

"Meaning that you pity their inferiority in all things and how they, no matter how hard they try, could never reach your level?"

"Interpret it as you will, my Lord."

"But I'm right, aren't I?"

"I cannot deny that."

Ciel "tsk"ed, frowned one last time at the degradation, then turned and stalked away.

"So only a demon can impress a demon."

"Only an unholy can impress an unholy, yes."

Ciel paused.

"Meaning that there are other unholies out there?"

"Yes."

"Like what? Like who?"

"Oh," Sebastian said, waving his hand aside, "like demons and siths and ex-angels and vampires and undeads and golems and…"

"Wait, go back to that last one…"

"Undeads?"

"No, but I want to hear about those ones too. Did you just say 'vampires?'"

"I did."

"But vampires don't exist."

"They do. I should know."

"How do you know?"

"I'm related to one."

"Related? How?"

"My father is a vampire."

"Your father? You have a father?" Another thought came to mind that overrode the other one. "But how can you be a demon if your father is a vampire?"

Sebastian sighed at the stupidity of humans, particularly bratty human ones.

"My Lord, what do you need to create a child?"

"Well…a man and a woman, usually."

"And the child comes out what gender?"

"Well, either a girl or a boy. It's a fifty-fifty chance of having either."

"So the child is either a male or a female; it's not a male-female or a female-male?"

"No, that would be unnatural."

"Same concept here. A demon and a vampire have a child. Does the child come out either a demon or a vampire or a half-demon-half-vampire abomination?"

"I suppose…when you put it that way…either a demon or a vampire."

Sebastian nodded.

"So there you have it. It was, as you put it, a fifty-fifty chance. I could have been born a female, but instead I was born a male. I could have been born a vampire, but instead I was born a demon."

"What does that mean for your children?"

The thought of Sebastian having children was so revulsive that he wrinkled his nose.

"If I ever did have a child, which I am not planning to have," he finally said, "it depends on who the other unholy would be. Suppose I breed (here he shuddered at the very thought) with a sith. That means that my child has a third of a chance of being a vampire, a third of a chance of being a demon, and a third of a chance of being a sith. If I breed with another demon, my child has a two-thirds chance of being a demon and a one-third chance of being a vampire. This is basic mathematics, my Lord."

"Is there a chance of it being a fifty-fifty chance, like you?"

"No." He paused. "Well, yes, but such an occurrence is so rare it's hardly worth mentioning."

"What's the occurrence?"

"If the child is a cambion, then there is a fifty-fifty chance."

"What's a cambion?" 

"The product of a human and an unholy." He said it with more disgust than when he was talking about the other possibilities of children.

"But wouldn't there be a one-third chance of the child being human, a one-third chance of the child being a demon, and so forth?"

"No. The power of the unholy would override the power of the human. If a cambion was created, the ungodliness would literally kill anything human about the child, making it a fifty-fifty chance."

"So where would that leave the human?"

"If the human was a man, the man would be completely unaffected by the whole process. If the human was a woman, the woman would become the cambionic vessel."

"The cambionic vessel?"

"Any human material would be destroyed as soon as the child came into being. The child would become a complete unholy and belong exclusively to the unholy father, genetically. The human woman would have no genetic material in the child, and so it's not really her child at all. It's just a baby that she's holding on to until the birth. She's just a vessel for a cambion."

"You say 'cambion' like it's a bad thing."

"It is a bad thing, my Lord. Cambions are disgraceful. Once in a while a cambion comes from an accident, but most cambions are the result of a sexually irresponsible unholy. Disgusting."

"I take it you don't want a cambion then?"

"My Lord," Sebastian said, smiling a very thin smile, "the odds of me having a cambion are so low, they're not even worth considering, especially as I never intend to have children."

"Why not? Why don't you like children?"

"You'll know the next time you look in a mirror."

Ciel glared at Sebastian, who hid a smile behind his gloved hand.

"Well, suppose you do have a child," Ciel finally said. "Suppose it's unavoidable. Suppose it's already happened. Wouldn't you be happy? Wouldn't you be proud of it?" Sebastian didn't answer; Ciel tried another tactic. "Suppose you already had one. What would you want from it? What would you like seeing in it?"

Sebastian thought for a moment.

"It would be nice," he finally said, "if the child—not that I would ever want one—had blue eyes."

"Blue eyes?" Ciel asked, surprised.

"Yes…" Sebastian murmured, looking away, lost in a mostly-forgotten memory, "I have always liked blue eyes. I can't remember why…But I remember that she had blue eyes."

"'She?'"

Sebastian jolted out of his memory, losing whatever he had remembered.

"She? What she? There is no she. What are you talking about, my Lord?"

"What am I talking about? You're the one who's acting strange."

Sebastian frowned, shrugged, smiled.

"Shall we return back to the manor, my Lord? We must consider our next move in this case."

Ciel nodded and they walked off, at the moment blissfully unaware that at that moment, a train was pulling into the London station.

A train with a woman in it.

A woman with a child.


	7. Chapter 7

_The first thought that came to her mind was,_ "Who am I?"

"Oh," _she realized half-a-second later,_ "I'm me."

"Where am I?"

 _That question was less easily answered than the first one. She knew that it was dark and unpleasantly warm. She wriggled around in the heat. She was roasting. She wondered where she was, and, more importantly, when she would get out._

 _It was hungry in the warm dark place. She didn't know what was wrong, but something in her mind told her that she shouldn't be hungry. But there was nothing around to eat, unless she wanted to start nibbling off her fingers, which she didn't want to do. She might harm her teeth._

 _Her teeth! She had glorious, beautiful white teeth. Granted, she had only two of them, but they were long and sharp and made her enormously proud. She liked flexing them and retracting them into her mouth and then extending them again so that they reached past her chin. She liked touching them delicately with her stick-like fingers, relishing how they reacted at her sensitive touch._

 _Yes, she liked her teeth, but her teeth couldn't exactly produce food for her._

 _The place that she was in was grossly fleshy. She didn't like touching it; it quivered in disgust at her touch. She felt uncertainty and expectation. She didn't like the feel of uncertainty and expectation seemed ready to disappoint. She hated how fat and jiggly the walls of her prison were, but she still couldn't help but touch them. She realized that she was searching for something, something deeper and greater and far more wonderful than anything she had felt before._

 _She didn't know it, but what she was searching for was Love._

 _Sometime during her month-long starvation, she had the idea of biting into the fat disgusting flesh. It seemed weak enough to not damage her beautiful teeth, and if she was lucky, she might find something tasty._

 _So she bit._

 _Something warm came out of the flesh, something warm and tasty and far more interesting than anything else she had discovered. She knew things about her prison based on touching the walls, but drinking whatever-it-was made her_ really _know._

 _She learned that she was being protected for some reason._

 _She learned that the person protecting her wasn't really hers._

 _She learned that the person who really was hers wasn't really around._

 _It was all very confusing, particularly as the person who was protecting her was also confused, mostly due to the fact that sometimes she couldn't drink the liquid fast enough and it would spill out. She didn't think too much of it. After all, if the person protecting her couldn't properly feed her, she had to feed herself somehow, correct? And if the person had a complaint, it was their fault for not feeding her. She was completely innocent._

 _She was also completely bored._

 _It was boring in her prison. Eventually the warm liquid became boring too, so she stopped drinking it. It didn't really provide her with everything she needed; she began drinking it only in the direst of situations. It became too tiresome and tedious. She dreamed of a place where she could get as much of the liquid as she wanted, and it would provide her with everything she needed, and it would be different each time. That is, she dreamed on the off-chance that she slept. She wasn't good at sleeping._

 _One day, she was restlessly kicking about and wishing that something interesting would happen for a change when she felt the walls of her prison shudder. And then they shuddered again. And then they never stopped shuddering. She felt a thrill of excitement. She had done it. She had passed the test. She was now being evicted from her prison; how wonderful freedom sounded!_

 _Freedom felt nice too. Freedom was nice and cold; it blew over her, cooling her burning body. Freedom was interesting; there was so much to look at! Freedom tasted interesting too; she stuck out her little forked tongue and tasted the freedom; so many new sights and smells and sounds to explore!_

 _At least, that had been the plan._

 _There was a woman, a woman who had protected her and had provided the liquid to feed her when she was in the prison in the woman's belly. She had naturally assumed that the woman would keep on protecting her, even if she was no longer in the prison. She was wrong. She was very, very wrong._

 _The woman tossed her in a cradle and left, leaving her alone and fussy. She didn't mind being alone; it was nice and cool and there was much more space to wriggle around in; but she minded not being able to sit up and explore all of the freedom; there were bars in the way and she didn't want to bite them. They seemed too hard and without the liquid._

 _The woman returned several days later, reeking and carrying numerous bottles. She tried to smile and ask the woman to take care of her; she was dirty and hungry and she needed care. The woman spat at her and called her several foul names and kept on drinking from those bottles. The more she drank, the worse she got. She herself was unharmed, despite being extremely uncomfortable, as the bars that prevented her from exploring freedom also prevented the woman from doing any real damage. She tried not to mind too much. She knew from the woman's smell and taste that she wasn't really hers._

 _Then one day a man came. A completely black man, with eyes that burned with a heat that she had never known before. She looked up at him and he looked down at her and she knew that this was the man that she had been waiting for, the person who was really truly hers._

 _"It's not mine," the man had said. "And even if it was, I wouldn't accept her."_

 _Then he had left, left forever. She never saw him again._

 _She was in shock, of course. She knew that the man was hers and that she was his. But he had just rejected her. Flat-out rejected her. He hadn't cared. He hadn't cared at all. She was so shocked that she couldn't even think for a few minutes. Her next thought was cold and permanent: it would last her for quite a long time._

"Well, if he doesn't have a daughter, then I don't have a father."

 _This thought comforted her for a good two seconds and then the woman screamed at her and threw a saucepan at her head. She had screamed from shock and pain; she had never been hurt before. But she would learn. In the coming years, pain would be the one constant._

 _She didn't know this, but in a pinch, an unholy can grow rapidly in a very short amount of time. It has been proven and re-proven too many times to count. For example, if an unholy child has spent a day in a dangerous situation, at the end of the day they'd have grown up to a pre-teen. If an unholy teenager has spent a month in danger, at the end of the month they'd have already become an adult._

 _The man had left a week ago. By the end of that week, the baby had become a toddler._

 _A human child can walk and talk at around two-to-three years after birth. She could walk and talk a week after she had become a toddler._

 _After those two weeks of very fast growing, the normal unholy rate started and she began growing as slowly as the rest of them. That meant that while the babies she had seen in the houses had grown up and gotten married, she was still about two feet._

 _The woman who had protected her—her mother—hadn't aged either. Neither had her penchant for drinking and for all forms of abuse._

 _The villagers called them all sorts of things: witch, bitch, demon whore, demon spawn, freak, beast, filth…They were chased out and forced to start a nomadic life, always moving when they became too suspicious._

 _She lived through years of torture and turmoil, of starving in the streets, begging for a few coins, then going home to be hit and have things thrown at her and be called disgusting names by her drunk of a mother, and then moving after a few years._

 _She became accustomed to it all, as children often do. She learned the languages of the places where she was staying, as well as the words that her mother called her; she learned how to properly beg and steal and how to bite a dog and get its sweet warm liquid to survive…_

 _She didn't know that she was different from the other humans. She had been born and raised among the humans; it had never occurred to her that she wasn't one of them. She knew that she had to bite living things and get their blood and drink it to survive; she thought that everyone did it but it wasn't something that polite people discussed. She knew that she knew things that nobody else knew or that she could taste feelings and see thoughts and hear the colors of life; she thought that perhaps she was just gifted. The only thing that bothered her was how her nose frequently bled._

 _The nosebleeds usually came after the worst of headaches. Her head always ached; she had no idea why, but it just always did. It was annoying but usually not omnipresent; the only time that she ever thought that it was a severe problem was one night, a rare night because she was actually asleep. She woke up gasping and coughing up blood; blood was streaming from her nose and her eyes and her ears and her mouth and in the morning her mother beat her for making a mess._

 _Sometimes she wondered why and how she survived. How she could live through the tears and the starvation and the abuse. She thought that perhaps she wasn't fated to die. She thought that maybe she was luckier than most. She thought that it could have something to do with why she and her mother never aged._

 _She never thought that it could be because she wasn't human._


	8. Chapter 8

Ciel was listening to Madam Red talk about how he really should attend the next garden party and trying to think up counter-arguments as to why he shouldn't. Sebastian, of course, was no help; he just poured tea and then stood off to the side, as if he had never existed in the first place. Once or twice their eyes met and Ciel tried to tell him with his eyes to help him out, but Sebastian just gave him a sweet, too-innocent smile and hid a smirk behind his hand.

"So, Ciel?"

"Ah—what?"

"Are you going to the next party or not?"

"Oh…Do I have to?"

"Well, you don't really _have_ to, but darling, don't you _want_ to?"

Ciel's expression answered her question.

"Oh, for goodness sakes, Ciel, it's just another party," Madam Red said irritably. "It won't kill you. And you might learn something useful."

"Oh, of course, it's always _very_ useful to know that Gertrude disgraced herself by wearing a vermillion dress to a society ball last week."

"Firstly, it was Clarice who did that; secondly, they talk a lot about charitable works too."

"Of course, I love donating to 'save-the-abandoned-cockroaches'; such a noble cause."

"Ciel!"

"What?" 

"Sebastian, can't you please talk some sense into this boy?" Madam Red said, turning to the butler beseechingly. He smiled and shook his head.

"I'm afraid, my Lady, that most children are incredibly stubborn and do not know what's good for them."

"Too true," Madam Red said. "You're just a fountain of wisdom, aren't you, Sebastian? If you ever have children, they're going to be the smartest little munchkins the world over. And the cutest! Can't you just imagine," she turned to Ciel, "Sebastian's masculine looks on an adorable little baby face? Wouldn't you just die of cuteness?"

"Without a question," Ciel said, trying to resist laughing. Sebastian's smile had turned a bit sour.

"And what if he has a daughter?" Madam Red persisted, getting more and more excited. "Just imagine how cute that would be! She'd have such big eyes and that type of face that could just break your heart and a smile that could fix it again…Sebastian, why don't you have kids?"

"I have never been partial to the idea, my Lady," Sebastian said, trying to smile through clenched teeth.

"You mean you would never, ever want a child?"

"My Lady, what would I ever do with one?"

In the later months, Ciel would look back on this conversation and think of how ironic it was that just as Sebastian finished this statement, Finny came in and said that there was a woman at the door who wanted to talk to him.

"To who? To me?" Ciel had said, standing up. Finny had looked embarrassed.

"No my Lord…She wanted to talk to Sebastian."


	9. Chapter 9

_Her mother gasped and shrieked, clutching a waterlogged newspaper that had somehow came all the way from England to France._

 _"This is it! This is him!" She shouted, her voice hoarse from too much drinking and screaming. She stood up and kicked her awake, probably aware that she had never been sleeping to begin with._

 _"Wake up! Wake up, you little whore! Wake up and see!"_

 _She sat up wearily, tired and bruised, clutching her head. Her headache was worse this morning._

 _"Look!" her mother hissed, shoving the paper into her face. "Look you little bitch."_

 _She ignored her headache and tried to focus. As usual, she couldn't read what the paper said, but the photograph on the front page showed a little boy with a bandaged eye and a smiling tall man, dressed in black._

 _"'Earl of Phantomhive's Mysterious Return!'" her mother said, shaking the paper. "And look who's right next to him! Him! Your father! That damned, disgusting demon!"_

"Wrong. I don't have a father," _she thought but never had the nerve to say. It didn't matter about her silence, though, because her mother kicked her again and told her to get her wretched little ass moving._

 _"And do what, mother?" she said and got kicked again._

 _"Don't call me that! Go and get some money, you idiot! I have to get to England as soon as possible! Quick, quick! Before he leaves again! For years I've been searching for him," she said, greedily staring at the photograph. "For years I've suffered because of him. For years I've been forced to put up with_ you _and it was all because of_ him _! But now my luck has changed! Now the tides have turned! Now it'll be_ his _turn to suffer and_ my _turn to rejoice! What are you still standing around for, you insolent stupid brat! Go and get some money! We have to leave immediately!"_

 _"But," she said tiredly, "it's expensive to go to England. It'll take me years to save up, especially if you continue drinking…"_

 _She got several other kicks and a couple punches for that._

 _"Don't talk back to me you whoring bitch! Get out and don't come back until you've gotten the tickets to England!"_

 _And so, crying tears of blood, she staggered out into the cold and the rain to beg for money. True to her word, her mother wouldn't let her in the house until she came back with two tickets to England. It had been hard and long, but she had eventually done it._

 _Two years after her mother had found the newspaper, they had arrived in England._


	10. Chapter 10

Sebastian looked incredibly surprised when he learned that a woman wanted to talk to him. He shared a look with Ciel, who shrugged and said,

"Well, let her in; let's see what she wants."

Finny nodded and left the room. A few minutes later, a horrible smell filled the room. A woman shortly followed it.

She might have been pretty once, but years of poverty and too much alcohol had ruined her once-fine looks. Her blonde hair was dirty and coarse and clumps of it were missing. Her blue eyes were bleary and bloodshot, her teeth were brown and rotting, her clothes were dirty and torn and she smelled just _awful_. Ciel resisted the urge to hold his nose.

Madam Red stood up, attempting to smile.

"Er…Hello, miss. Wh-What can we do for…"

" _You!"_ the woman hissed, pointing an accusatory finger at Sebastian. She marched up to him, staggering a bit from drunkenness, and didn't stop until she was several inches away from his face. Sebastian wrinkled his nose from her smell, but he still stared at her with a mixture of horror and fascination…as if he had known her from somewhere…

"For _years_ I've suffered," the woman slurred. "For _years_ I've been forced to endure the worst type of hell on earth. For _years_ I've been taking care of _your damned BRAT_ …For _years_ I've been looking for _you_. And now— _finally_ —I've _found_ you. I won't have to take care of your damned bastardess for you anymore. I'm free! Free I tell you! FREEE!" And she cackled and began rocking back and forth with glee.

Madam Red stepped in front of Ciel defensively. Ciel and Sebastian shared a look. Clearly this woman was mad.

"Where is she?" the woman muttered, looking around the room. "Where's the little bitch?" Her eyes wandered over to the door; they flashed with hate and malice. She charged over to the door and looked into the hallway. "You little BITCH!" they heard her scream at someone invisible. "Are you _hiding_?! Come out here this instant you disobedient, insolent, wretched little _whore_!"

She grabbed something and threw it into the room by one of her long black ponytails. Then she stalked over and began kicking and screaming at the little girl…She grabbed her by the other ponytail and threw her with all her might at Sebastian, but she wasn't strong enough so the girl just smashed her head against the side of the table.

"She's your problem now," the woman hissed at the shocked Sebastian. "She's yours now! Not mine! I'm free!" She turned and hobbled out of the room as fast as she could go. They could hear her screaming as she went, _"FREEEE!"_

"Sebastian, make sure she leaves and doesn't cause any more trouble," Ciel said, hardly unable to speak from surprise. Nobody moved. "Sebastian…?"

His butler was staring at the girl with a look best described as pure horror. He didn't move a muscle; just stared down at her.

"You…" he whispered in a trembling voice. "I remember you…The cambion…"

"Sebastian?" Madam Red said, gripping Ciel's shoulder. "What's going on? Who is this girl?"

Sebastian mechanically looked up at her.

"I met her once…centuries ago…That woman…she said that she was my daughter…"

Ciel looked at the girl, so similar to Sebastian. Same face shape, same features, same black hair, only she was pale, whiter than white, and thin, so, so thin…She looked up at them all through scared, huge blue eyes and licked her lips, revealing two teeth like fangs.

"Your…daughter?"


	11. Chapter 11

They left the girl quietly sitting on the floor while they went to another room to discuss things and occasionally peek out at her.

"Alright Sebastian," Madam Red whispered, "tell us everything you remember."

Sebastian put a hand on his head.

"It was so long ago; it's difficult to remember," he said. "I remember that I was working for a man who controlled a small village. And there was this woman who found something out or knew something that nobody else knew, and my master ordered me to interrogate her for this information. So I went over to interrogate her and the only option that would have made her tell me the information was to do something…physical. So I did it, got my information, and then I left. I was sure that that would be the end of it, but about nine months later, I got a letter saying that she needed to talk to me about something. So I went and she showed me an unholy baby girl and told me that it was mine. I said that it wasn't and then I left again. I've never seen either the woman or the girl again…until today." They all peeked at the girl again; she was looking around at the room in wonder, as if she had never been in a proper house all her life. "I never thought that the woman would be so desperate to get rid of the girl that she'd try to find me for _centuries_."

"But she didn't age," Ciel whispered. "She didn't look centuries old; she looked like twenty."

"She must have been the cambionic vessel," Sebastian whispered back. "If a cambion is born and the unholy parent isn't around to take care of it, the cambionic vessel takes care of the cambion until the parent is found. Unholies don't age as fast as humans do, so the aging for the vessel stops until the parent is found so that the child can still have someone look after it."

"So what do we do now?" Madam Red asked.

"We have to find the child's unholy parent, of course."

"We already did that; next?"

"'Next'? What do you mean, 'next'? Who's the parent?" Sebastian asked, surprised.

"You, of course!"

 _"ME?!_ It's not me! The very idea—"

Madam Red ignored him and walked over to the girl. She noticed, leapt up to her feet and managed a very charming curtsey. Madam Red smiled at her and tried not to cry at the marks of violence on her body—cuts, scrapes, bruises, both of her eyes were purple, her dress was torn, she could easily count her ribs…

"Poor thing," Madam Red murmured, sitting down in front of the girl. "You poor, poor thing…"

The girl looked a little awkward. She looked around, wondering who the "poor thing" was. She saw a boy, older than her, who smelled of bitterness and loneliness. That must be the "poor thing." But the boy was behind the lady. She must have trouble with her sight.

"What's your name?" Madam Red asked gently.

The girl blinked at her.

"…What?"

Her voice was calm and cold, with a slight sing-song—as if every letter in the alphabet was assigned a musical note, and she was merely singing the notes.

"Your name." The girl didn't seem to understand. "What do people call you?" Still nothing. "What did your mother frequently call you?"

"…Bitch?"

Madam Red shuddered at the cruelty of it all.

"No, I mean, do you have a name? Like Annabel or Berenice or Lenore…"

"No."

"Oh." She looked at Ciel and Sebastian a little helplessly. "Do you—Do you have any family?"

"I had a mother, but she left."

"Really? Where to? When?"

"About five minutes ago; she dumped me here and left. I think she's going down to the nearest, cheapest pub to celebrate if you want to find her."

"Right, sorry, silly question." Madam Red again looked at the other two and got an idea. "Do you…recognize anyone? Specifically that man?" She pointed at Sebastian; the girl gave him a cool look.

"I recognize him," she said. "I met him—once. Years and years ago."

"Really?" Madam Red said, excited. "Wh-What happened? What do you remember?"

"I remember I was lying down," the girl said, staring down at her skeletal hands, covered in cuts and scabs. "I remember it was after my escape from the prison…" She paused, thinking. "This was after I was born; I was lying down in a cradle, and _he_ came." She again looked down at her hands. " _He_ came and he looked at me and he said…"

"What? What did he say?"

When the girl looked up, her blue eyes were as cold as ice.

"He said, 'It's not mine, and even if it was, I wouldn't accept her.'"

They stared at Sebastian, who stared at the girl and then down at the floor. He slowly nodded.

"It's true," he said quietly. "I remember that I said that. And then…I walked away." He looked up at the girl with something resembling remorse, which quickly died away. "But she's still not mine," he insisted. "There must have been some mistake…"

"I agree; we can't just accept her just like that," Ciel said. "We have to have some form of proof that she's really his daughter."

"But how?" Madam Red asked, looking at Sebastian, who was thinking.

"I know a place," he finally said, "where we can go and get a blood test, a test which will tell us if she's really my daughter, and if she's not—which she isn't—who's child she actually is."

Madam Red nodded and turned back to the girl.

"We're so sorry about all this," she said. "This must be so confusing and hard for you. But if you just come with us, I guarantee that we'll get this whole mess straightened out."

The girl nodded and stood up.


	12. Chapter 12

Sebastian prepared a small carriage, one that would fit two people and one _very_ small girl, and was only pulled by one horse. He brought the horse out and the girl stared at it in wonder.

It was a beautiful horse; Phantomhive's best. Huge, tall, and black with rippling muscles and a glorious mane…Ciel had never actually been allowed to ride it and had never seen it before at the mansion until Sebastian had arrived. He had never been able to find another one as perfect as it, although he had to admit that it unnerved him slightly—he had never seen a horse with crimson eyes before.

The horse obediently trotted behind Sebastian. The girl hesitantly crept closer to it, eyes wide. The horse noticed; its nostrils flared; and suddenly it stopped and jutted its huge head right in front of her, breathing in deeply and staring at her with its eerie eyes. Sebastian impatiently jerked its head up again.

 _"Letum! Convias."_

He always spoke in a strange tongue when speaking to this certain horse—a language resembling Latin, only every now and then with some words that sounded distinctly French, or Russian, or Italian, or what-have-you. Whenever he spoke this language, he sing-songed the words, as if the language was originally meant to be sung. Like the horse, it was beautiful in an undeniably creepy way.

The girl looked at the horse and the horse looked at the girl. It flicked its tongue out and licked her cheek.

"Letum!"

The girl carefully held her hand out to the horse. It stared at her straight in the eyes and gently bit down on her fingers, causing blood to spill, which the horse quickly lapped up.

Ciel glanced at Madam Red. He had never heard of a horse behaving in such a manner, let alone seeing it happen.

The horse seemed satisfied with her blood, because it whinnied and licked her forehead, this time in a much friendlier manner. Sebastian rolled his eyes, jerked the reins again, and led the horse to the carriage.

In a few minutes Madam Red and Ciel were settled inside the carriage, with Sebastian waiting in the driver's seat with the reins. The girl remained on the ground, looking awkward and shuffling her feet.

"What's wrong?" Madam Red asked. "Don't you want to ride up with us?"

"It's…It's awfully luxurious—ma'am," the girl finished quickly, so as not to seem rude.

"'Too luxurious?' Oh! Then ride with Sebastian!" She looked pointedly at the butler, who got out of the driver's seat and easily hoisted the girl up so that she would sit next to him. Then he climbed back into his seat, re-grabbed the reins, and made a little clicking sound with his tongue—"tk-tk!"—and the horse obediently trotted off, easily pulling the carriage behind it.

Madam Red and Ciel began discussing something quietly amongst themselves, leaving the girl and Sebastian alone.

She couldn't stop staring at the horse. Once or twice she flicked out her tongue, like a snake, and Sebastian could see how it had grown a little forked.

"It's called a Telstra," he finally said, causing her to look up at him.

"What?"

"The horse. It's a Telstra. It's not…human."

"Oh," she said, looking back at the horse. "That explains a lot."

"Explains what?"

"Explains why it has wings and such."

"Wings?" He shot an anxious glance at the Madam and Ciel. "It doesn't have wings right now; it's in its Human form…"

"But it does have wings," the girl insisted. "They're right there; can't you see them? Look—" And she pointed at the air above the horse's shoulders—or, had it been in its True form, where its wings would have been.

"Let me explain something to you," Sebastian said. "Most people don't… _see_ things that you do. They don't… _look_ the same. So it's best not to talk about what you can see and assume that other people also can. For your own good."

"But you _can_ see them, right?" the girl insisted. "I know that you're not human; you taste differently; you're absolutely disgusting; but if you're not human that means that you have different abilities than humans do which means you can see them, right?"

"Let's not discuss my humanity at this moment," Sebastian said, seeing the odd looks they were getting from the people on the street. "Let's just say that, for the moment, you can see things that no one else can, and it's best not to talk about them."

"So you can't see them," the girl said.

Sebastian paused.

"No. No I can't," he finally admitted. The girl looked at him for a moment.

"So you're disgusting _and_ useless," she said. "Huh. Interesting."

Ciel heard this last comment and snickered. The horse made a sound that sounded like a giggle. Sebastian did not look pleased.

"Ciel, are you _listening_?" Madam Red said irritably.

"Yes," Ciel sighed.

"So, about this garden party…"

"Do I really _have_ to?"


	13. Chapter 13

After several miles of Ciel and Madam Red arguing about parties and the real significance of high-heels, Sebastian pulled the carriage into an alleyway, away from the bustling streets and bright lights of London.

He had been quite unhappy at being called "useless" by the girl who may-or-may-not-be his daughter, but as the trip went on, he couldn't stop sneaking glances at her.

She sat quietly, hands folded in her lap, more behaved than any other child he had seen. She kept on looking around the city with her blue eyes huge, as if drinking everything in, as if she knew that she would never see anything like it ever again. This was doubly impressive considering that Sebastian thought that London was rather a dump. After the "useless" comment, she never said a word to either him or to the passengers behind them, just kept memorizing the city, every now and then twirling a lock of her black hair. When they pulled into the alley, she bent her head and her eyes got a bit icy; her body tensed; she seemed prepared for the worst. Sebastian wished that he could think of something to say, something comforting yet not too familiar.

"Don't worry," he said and realized how lame that sounded the moment it left his lips.

She gave him a surprised look and nodded. He couldn't tell what she was thinking—it is always impossible for a man to determine a woman's thoughts, let alone a vampire's.

The carriage was carefully navigated through the dark and dingy streets. The horse seemed to know where to go; every step it took was carefully planned and perfectly steady. Ciel and Madam Red looked nervously at the people lining the streets—they wore dark, shabby clothing and glared at them with mistrust.

"Sebastian? Are you sure this is the right place?" Madam Red finally got the nerve to ask.

"Positive," he said, his eyes never leaving the horse's back. "I've been here too many times to count."

The girl said nothing but gently rubbed her thigh, where she kept a knife hidden—just in case he tried to sell her for organs. It wouldn't be the first time; her mother had tried that numerous times in the past. Nothing had ever come of it; she had always been able to get out of it just fine, except for numerous nosebleeds and a splitting headache.

He stopped the carriage in front of a huge building that was falling apart. It didn't look at all structurally sound or in the tiniest bit healthy, but he leapt down from the seat all the same, swung the girl down onto the ground, and assisted the Madam and the young Master out of the carriage.

Some scruffy-looking man came out of the building to meet them. Sebastian went forward and they discussed some things. Ciel noticed that they were using the same Latin-like language that his butler used every now and again.

After a few minutes of discussion, with the man pointing at several parts of the building and gesturing and Sebastian nodding, they shook hands and Sebastian gave him some coins. The man then did a small bow, grabbed the horse's reins, and led the horse off. He smiled at the girl as he passed and she started. He had the same teeth as she did.

"Well, shall we?" Sebastian said cheerfully. He didn't seem to care that he just allowed his horse and carriage to be taken away by a strange homeless man.

"What—go in _there_? Are you serious?"

"This is the place," Sebastian said. "You'll see once we get inside."

All three of them seriously doubted this, but they braved the creaking, rotting steps of the building anyway and politely ventured inside the old decaying building.

The inside was completely different. It was shining and polished and spotlessly clean. Men and women were running around in doctor's clothes and nurses' outfits, pushing carts lined with silver surgical tools and carrying laundry baskets full of linen.

"It's…It's a hospital," Madam Red said, shocked.

Sebastian nodded with pride.

"This is a division of Sint Miseri's Hospital, London branch. Sint Miseri is the best unholy hospital in all the four worlds—and _very_ well-hidden."

"You don't say…?" Madam Red murmured as they strolled through the lobby, staring at everything as if in a dream. Sebastian walked up to the front desk and began conversing with the nurse, still in that strange language. Once or twice he gestured to the girl, who was standing quietly, her eyes firmly trained to the floor.

She didn't like the hospital. She had heard of hospitals but had never been in one before, except for that one time when she thought that her mother was dying and they kicked her out, but she didn't think that it counted because she had only peeked inside the building; she had never actually made it past the door. If she had known that hospitals were like this, she wouldn't have been so interested in them.

It smelled wrong. There was a complete absence of life. Most buildings had at least a tiny smell of life in them—this one didn't have anything. All it had was a strange type of death—a death that quickly and efficiently killed any and all forms of life—an unnatural death.

A nurse walked by and she shuddered. She had been alive, she was sure of it, but she had been coated in the strange smell of the death, to the point where she hadn't been sure of her life.

The black man finished talking to the nurse at the front desk and they all went and sat down in chairs lining the walls, waiting.

"What are we waiting for?" the multicolored lady finally asked. Her voice was light and jazzy, like a trumpet.

"We're waiting for our turn to see the doctor," the black man said in his perfect violin voice.

"Don't we have to fill out paperwork or something?" the blue boy asked. His voice sounded like a violin too, only an out-of-tune violin played by a novice.

"No, why?" Sebastian asked, surprised. "We just wait for the doctor."

"But don't you need a record or something?"

"They already have my records; they don't need them again."

He looked at the girl; she wasn't moving a muscle and seemed to be trying to restrict her breathing. Ciel noticed it too.

"Hey, um…Are you alright?"

"Fine, sir, thank you," she said in a tone that clearly said, " _hell_ no!"

Ciel shared a look with Sebastian, who then looked down at the girl. She raised her hand up, as if to rest her head on it, but they could see how she was delicately covering her nose.

"If you're feeling ill…" Sebastian tried to say and then stopped. He didn't know what else to say, what to offer her. He gave a helpless look at Madam Red, who rolled her eyes and raised her hand up to signal a passing nurse.

"Nurse, we have a little girl here who's not feeling well." 

"Oh?" the nurse walked closer and the girl visibly shuddered. "Oh, I see. First time in a hospital?" she smiled at her. Sebastian nodded. "Well, it's alright. It always happens the first couple of times. Do you have a handkerchief, sir?" She turned to the butler, who nodded and removed it. The nurse pulled out a spray bottle filled with water, lightly wetted the napkin, and then sprinkled it with multicolored crystals from a vial. "Here, try this. You'll grow accustomed to it eventually. Take care," she smiled again and walked off.

The girl took the handkerchief and pressed it against her face, breathing in deeply. It smelled like bright, happy green. She liked this type of green. Green was life. She closed her eyes and felt a bit sleepy. But no, it was rude to sleep in front of people, especially aristocratic people, especially people who had been so nice to her.

Save for one.

"Are you feeling better?" the black man asked.

"Yes sir, thank you."

She tried to ignore his presence, but it was so difficult, especially in this place. She hadn't noticed it before; the smell of death had overcome it at first; but as she grew accustomed, she realized that everyone—the nurses and the doctors and such—smelled like him. They had the same scent, the scent that humans lacked…Like him, everyone in this place wasn't human. She hated it. She wished that he would go away. She wished that she was still with her mother. Her mother hadn't been the best woman, but at least she was predictable. She knew what her mother could and would do next. This man wasn't predictable at all. She had no idea what he was thinking, what he would do to her. She thought that, if he turned violent, the pain and the fear would be so much worse than her mother. But even worse than the thought of pain was the anticipation of pain. She glared at him through the corner of her eye; the pain would come; he would bring it; she was sure of it; she just didn't know _when._ He was evil. Pure evil. She was so glad she didn't have a father.

A nurse came a few minutes later.

"We're ready for you."

They were led to a shining elevator, the nurse pressed a button, and they were off. The girl's stomach dropped; she was forced to steady herself by grabbing the man's pant leg.

Sebastian looked down at the girl with surprise. She was not looking well.

"First time in a hospital?" the nurse asked. He nodded. "That explains a lot." She smiled kindly down at the girl, who was looking at the floor, wondering why it was moving.

"Explains what?" Ciel couldn't help asking.

"Explains her illness; vampires can't stand the smell of antiseptic." She smiled at her again. "Unfortunately, we can't cater to everyone; antiseptic helps more people than not. But don't worry, you'll get used to it after a time."

"Everyone says that," Ciel said a bit sourly. "Are you expecting her to go to the hospital every other day or something?"

The nurse gave him a very small, very sad smile. Sebastian offered the girl the scented handkerchief again, but she ignored it. She was very embarrassed at having to rely on him for help in this strange moving box-thing and wanted to let him know that this was a one-time deal. She hated him and didn't want to have anything to do with him.

They arrived at the floor they wanted and the nurse led them to a room. Sebastian sat down on the hospital bed; the nurse lifted the girl up to sit next to him.

"So, what are you in for?" the nurse asked, flipping through some papers.

"We need a test to see if she's really my daughter or not."

"Ah! So a blood test. I'll get the doctor." She left the room; Ciel groaned.

"We'll be waiting her forever," he grumbled. "These doctors always take forever to come and see the patients…"

He was wrong; about a minute later the doctor entered with the nurse, who was pushing a cart filled with utensils: two glass flasks, two blood bags, and two needles attached to two tubes, upon which was a gauge.

"So, a blood test," the doctor said, sterilizing the needles. "Sir, if you would please…?"

Sebastian willingly took off his coat and shirt and held his arm out to the doctor. The doctor poised the needle over one of his veins. The nurse watched the gauge and placed the tube over one of the glass flasks.

"Nurse, are you ready?"

"Ready sir."

The doctor plunged the needle into Sebastian's arm. Red blood filled the tube and began pouring into the flask.

"Nurse?"

"Blood flow steady, doctor."

"Good. Relax, sir."

Ciel didn't know what the doctor meant by "relax"; Sebastian hadn't moved a muscle. But suddenly the blood flowing through the tube became far more liquidy and black.

The nurse moved the tube from the flask to the bag and the bag filled up with his black blood.

"Ready, doctor."

The doctor removed the needle and cleaned the wound while the nurse labeled the bag.

"Excellent! Now for the girl…" He turned to the girl, who was staring in horror at the bag filled with black blood. "This might hurt a little," he assured her, "and your arm might feel a bit off for a time, but it's nothing to be worried about; it will go away in a day or so."

The girl nodded and started taking off her dress…

Madam Red quickly blocked Ciel's good eye with her hand. Sebastian modestly looked away, and then looked back. After all, if she really was his daughter, he'd be seeing her naked eventually. And he had to see if the blood drawing went well.

Her body was scarred and covered in bruises and so, so thin. Sebastian couldn't help but marvel at how thin she was. It couldn't possibly be healthy.

The doctor cleaned a part of her arm and poised the needle.

"Ready, nurse?"

"Yes sir."

He stuck the needle into her; she didn't wince or flinch; just watched her red blood pour into the glass flask.

"Blood flow steady, doctor."

"Good. Relax, miss…"

The blood was still red.

"Miss? Please relax."

"I can't," she said shortly. "I don't have black blood."

"But of course you do," the doctor said, looking at Sebastian.

"I don't," she insisted. "I'm not like _him_. I'm a human."

"She was raised among the humans all her life," Sebastian said. "I don't think she knows how to relax…"

"Oh. Well in that case, please pardon me, miss…" The doctor raised his arm and slapped the girl on the back of the head.

There was a flash of pain in her head; she felt the beginnings of a nosebleed; she wanted to cry from the injustice of it all; she didn't do anything; she just wanted to go back to her mother…

 _"No, no; take it like a man; don't let them see you cry…"_

The blood immediately turned black after the doctor had hit her head and the nurse transferred the tube to the blood bag.

"Finished, sir."

"Good!"

He removed the needle and cleaned the wound.

"You did very well," he assured the girl. "Please forgive my rudeness; does it hurt a lot?"

"No," the girl said shakily. She mechanically put on her dress; Madam Red removed her hand from Ciel's eye. The girl was staring at her blood bag and hesitantly pointed. "That—That's not mine, is it? It's not, right? It can't be. It's not mine!"

The doctor and the nurse shared a look.

"Yes, it's yours," the nurse said gently. "I understand that this must come as quite a shock to you, but please try to think positively: you're put in a much better position than any human is!"

"But it's not mine," she insisted. "It's not mine!" Her lower lip trembled; she was finally realizing that she was different; that the "vampire" that everyone was constantly referring to was her—"It's not mine! I'm not a vampire! Vampires are gross and evil and they kill people…" She gasped, remembering everyone in her life that she had bitten. Had she accidently turned them all into vampires? Was she as evil as the demons and the devils she had heard about in churches? "It's not mine! It's not mine! It's not mine!"

She buried her face in her hands. Sebastian looked at everyone helplessly and was met with the same look as his. He would have to deal with this on his own.

"Listen, it's not so bad being an unholy," he said, trying to make his voice as gentle as possible. "You get many more benefits; don't cry anymore; there's a dear…" He stretched his hand out to gently touch her head; she shot up and hissed at him; her luminescent blue eyes were wide with the irises small and the pupils diamond-shaped; her mouth was open with her teeth extended; she stuck out her tongue, showing everyone that it was, indeed, forked. Sebastian immediately jerked his hand back and the girl relaxed. She blinked, making her eyes go back to normal; she retracted her teeth and licked her lips, her tongue already growing and becoming one muscle again. She sighed tiredly and again buried her face in her arms.

"Well, I'll just pop down and run some tests on the blood then," the doctor said.

"How long will that take?" Madam Red asked.

"Oh, about half-an-hour or so, not too long, but it'll tell us everything we want to know: what kind of vampire she is, how old is she, how her overall health is, who her father is…" He glanced pointedly at Sebastian. "Nurse, take care of them."

"Yes doctor." And the doctor left.

The nurse began cleaning things up, humming to herself.

"Ah—Nurse?" Sebastian said.

"Yes?"

"Could we possibly have some injections for the girl? I don't think she's been immunized."

"Certainly! Let me just go and get some things…You want all of them?"

"I want as many as everyone else has, as many as is healthy, as many as will protect her from anything and everything."

The nurse nodded and left, returning about fifteen minutes later, her cart filled with numerous shots. Ciel shuddered at the line of them; there were quite a lot.

"Human injections," the nurse announced, picking one up. "Polio." She injected it into the girl's arm. "Tuberculosis. Cholera. Measles. Mumps. Hepatitis. Rabies."

"I've never heard of vaccines for such things," Ciel said. "They haven't been invented yet."

"Well, we're more advanced than you are, dear," the nurse said cheerfully. "Smallpox. Shingles."

This went on for some time; the girl didn't move or complain at all.

"Unholy injections. Unis. Angelitis. Reapets. Swanson's Disease."

Time passed.

"Vampiric injections. African Trogladydic Disease. European Trogladydic Disease. American Trogladydic Disease. Dydic Disease. Roy Disease. Synesthetic Prevention Disease."

At the end of another fifteen minutes, all the injections had been applied. The nurse disinfected the wounds and wrapped the girl's arm in bandages.

"There! You're all done. What a good girl; so polite and quiet…"

The doctor entered, carrying two files.

"Your file, sir," he said, giving one to Sebastian. "You're in perfect health, no complaints, nothing we haven't seen before. And the girl's…" he handed the other to him, "…Special vampire, perfect health save for some malnutrition, extreme synesthete…and she's your daughter."

Silence.

"My what," Sebastian finally said.

"Your daughter. Everything matches; the tests have been run; she really is your daughter."

"Doctor," Sebastian stood up and led the doctor aside. He tried to whisper, but they could still hear what he was saying: "Doctor, maybe there's a mistake; couldn't you run them through again? It's alright, we can wait…"

"The test is extremely accurate," the doctor said. "Surely you've heard of their accuracy?"

Sebastian passed his hand over his eyes.

"I've read that there's a statistical margin of error in the test, but I've never actually heard of one," he admitted. "But…surely…"

"Surely not. She's your daughter, through and through. One hundred percent yours."

"Oh," Sebastian said and sat down heavily, thinking. Everyone was silent, no one knowing where to look, so they all just stared down at the floor until Sebastian stood up again. "Thank you, doctor, nurse. I don't think that we need anything else. We'll take our leave now."

"Certainly! And if you do need anything else, please don't hesitate to return."

Sebastian nodded and they all went back down to the lobby, where Sebastian again spoke to the nurse at the desk. He paid her, she nodded, smiled at the girl, and handed her something on a stick: something that smelled sweet but was hard, like ice, yet slightly sticky. Sebastian thanked the nurse again and they left the hospital, back outside into the dirty dingy streets, where the man was waiting for them with the horse and the carriage. Sebastian exchanged a few words with him and gave him some more money.

Ciel and Madam Red got into the carriage. Sebastian lifted the girl back up into the driver's seat.

He got in himself, clicked at the horse, and they began to drive home.


	14. Chapter 14

They were all mostly silent. The girl twirled the sticky-sweet thing on a stick, thinking to herself. She wondered what all the diseases were that the nurse had injected her for—she had heard of tuberculosis and cholera and all that of course, but she wasn't so sure what reapets or unis or African Trogladydic Disease were. She wondered if the nurse had made them up on the spot to make an extra buck. It wouldn't have surprised her; she had done something like that in the past once or twice. She rubbed her arm; it was feeling a little odd. It didn't hurt, exactly, just felt off.

And then there was the issue of the sweetness on a stick. What was it for? It must have been important, but not too important; otherwise the nurse would never have given it to her.

"What is this?" she finally had to ask the black man.

"That? That's a lollipop."

"It's a what-what?"

"It's a…" Sebastian rethought his words; "lollipop" wasn't dignified to say. "You eat it."

"Really? Is it healthy?"

He thought about it—all the sugar…

"No, not really."

"Why did I get it then?"

"It's a reward for being good."

"Reward?"

She looked confused.

"It's a gift," he restated.

Now she just looked shocked.

"B-But I didn't pay! You have to turn around!"

Now it was his turn to be shocked.

"Turn around? What for?"

"I didn't pay for it!" She looked as if she was going to cry. "I didn't pay for it! An-And I don't have any money to pay for it, so we have to give it back immediately!"

"What do you have to pay for? It's a gift!"

"But I didn't _pay_!"

"But you don't _have to_!"

She began to cry. Unlike humans, she wept blood.

"I hate you!" she shouted. "I hate you! I hate you and I hope you die and get damned to the very recesses of hell and spend your entire afterlife in eternal torment and I hate you!"

Sebastian was confused. First she said that she hated him and then she gave him a compliment. It was very nice to wish a demon to hell. But then she added all those things about eternal torment and finished with another declaration of hatred. _And_ she had been raised all her life by humans. So she wasn't really saying nice things at all.

"Well, don't cry," he said lamely. He realized that he was saying quite a lot of things lamely to her.

He thought about gently touching her head, but remembered the face that she had pulled at the hospital: the vampiric attack face. The chance of survival for humans was less than one percent; for demons and other unholies it was around 58 percent—not very good odds for anyone. It was best to leave her alone, especially if she said that she hated him.

"I'll eat it if you like," Ciel said from the backseat. The girl gave him a very grateful look.

"You will? _Thank_ you! But…what about the hospital? What if they send a bill for it?" The panicked look returned.

"Don't worry, I can pay for a lollipop," Ciel said and the girl handed it over. "Mm, it's good." He held it out to Madam Red, who tried it and nodded. "Would you like some?" he offered to the girl, who shook her head and wiped the remnants of the bloody tears.

They were silent again, each one thinking their own private thoughts, until Sebastian suddenly turned into another road, the road leading to the Phantomhive town house instead of to the manor.

"Sebastian! What are you doing?" Ciel demanded.

Sebastian didn't stop until they pulled up in front of the town house. Then he placed his head in his hands.

"I can't do it," he said. "I can't go back to the manor and tell all the servants where I was and what I was doing and what had happened during the last three hours and I can't tell them that I have a daughter—worse, I have an _illegitimate daughter_! Worse than that, a daughter born from an alcoholic _human_." He shuddered; the shame of it all, the absolute _shame_. "What did I do?" he asked no one in particular. "What did I do? I've always tried to be good; I've obeyed all of my master's orders to the letter; I've never done anything wrong…"

"Sebastian!" Madam Red said sharply. "Can I talk to you please— _privately_?"

Sebastian got down from the carriage, helped the nobles out, and lifted the girl down. They entered the town house and Madam Red followed Sebastian down into the kitchen, where he was going to prepare tea.

"Sebastian, let me tell you something about children: _they need encouragement._ They need to feel as if they're loved and needed and wanted, _especially_ if, for their whole lives, they've felt and been told the exact opposite. And I know that she said that she hates you, but right now, you're the only one she has; you're the only one she can trust; you're the only one who can truly take care of her. It's not her fault that she was born; don't make her believe that she deserved everything that happened to her."

Sebastian listened quietly.

"I understand," he said. "Please excuse my rudeness; it's just still such a shock…"

"I understand, too," Madam Red said. "But with time and patience, I think that you and she can get along just fine. She's such a sweet little thing, and so cute! She's so polite and well-behaved…Some women would give everything they've got for such a little treasure." She sighed sadly, longingly. Sebastian examined her closely.

"Why don't you take her, then?"

"What?"

"Temporarily, of course. Just until I get my bearings straight. You can take her home with you and she can live with you for a time."

"Really?" Madam Red looked so happy. "But…What about her? We should ask what she wants…"

"I sincerely doubt that she'll be very sorry to leave me," Sebastian said with a tight smile.

"Well…If you're sure…"

"I'm positive. It would be an extreme help to me. And I know that you'll take good care of her. Haven't you always wanted a daughter?"

Madam Red nodded.

"Well…If you're sure…Then of course I'll take her! I'd be delighted to!"

Sebastian nodded, finished with the tea, and they went back upstairs.

"Ciel and…uh…Well! Wonderful news!" Madam Red said, opening the door to the drawing room. "Sebastian has just made a wonderful suggestion, and if we all agree to it, then…"

"NO!" Ciel shouted.

"No?" Madam Red said, shocked. "No what? What happened?"

Ciel pointed an accusing finger at the girl.

"She cheats! She just won _five games_!"

"At what? Chess?"

"No, she doesn't know how to play; poker."

"Poker?" Madam Red stared at Sebastian. "Young ladies shouldn't play cards; it's not very polite…"

"… _Especially_ if they win by cheating."

"But I didn't cheat," the girl said quietly. "It's not my fault if you suck at poker."

"I don't…" Ciel said indignantly, then stopped upon seeing Madam Red's expression. "Well, what's the good news, then?"

"Well, if everyone agrees to it," she glanced at the girl, "then she'll be living and staying with me for a while—temporarily, of course. Would you like that?" She kneeled down in front of the girl and smiled. The girl looked a little awkward; she stared down at her bare feet.

"Could I please tell you something?" she whispered.

"Why certainly," Madam Red said and leaned in. The girl whispered something in her ear and she looked shocked, and then began to smile. "Oh, don't worry," she assured her. "We'll figure something out. But would you like to come and stay with me for a while?"

The girl thought about it. Go and live with the multicolored lady? She seemed nice enough—she didn't smell wrong or anything. And she was a human. And it seemed better to live with her than stay with the black man. But there were so many problems and complications…Everyone was staring at her…

"Well…" she said, wondering how to put it. It was very difficult to agree to unwarranted hospitality, especially as she had absolutely nothing to offer in exchange. "Well…I'll go…Thank you very much…Thank you very much."

"Wonderful!" Madam Red said. "We'll take very good care of you. We'll leave tomorrow—is that alright?"

"Fine," Sebastian said a little faintly. He was still a bit unnerved by everything; it was all happening so fast. This morning he was single and this afternoon he had a daughter and that very evening he had lost her again.

The rest of the evening passed quietly. Madam Red, Ciel, and the girl played several hands of poker (the girl was very careful not to win; she didn't want to lose this strange generosity, especially by being accused of cheating) while Sebastian flipped through the girl's blood test results.

Dinner came; Madam Red and Ciel ate quietly together while the girl was given some porridge to eat in front of the fire. It wasn't polite to have a butler's daughter eat with the nobility and it wasn't fair to see them eating meat and vegetables and desserts while she was given plain porridge and toast. Sebastian might have given her something else, only she looked so starved that it probably wasn't healthy for her to suddenly eat so much rich food in such a short amount of time. She herself didn't know the difference between luxury and servant food; she hadn't been given hot food in a very long time, and in such abundance! She didn't dare to ask for seconds; the slightest insult could kick her out the door.

Several hours passed and Ciel was put to bed. The girl was led to a guest room and told to make herself at home. Madam Red went back to the drawing room, where Sebastian was still flipping through the results.

"See anything unusual?"

He shook his head.

"No matter how I look at it, the results are always the same," he sighed. "She's definitely my daughter. Everything matches up. I've looked at it backwards and forwards and sideways…She's my child."

"So what are you going to do?"

He looked out the window, thinking.

"I don't know," he finally said, quietly, as if he hated admitting it.

"Well, don't worry about it," Madam Red said, trying to be cheerful. "I'll take her home with me, give you some time to think things through properly, I'll take good care of her, and you'll visit often, and once you're ready, she'll come and live with you!"

Sebastian shrugged and nodded.

"I'm going to bed now," she said. "Good night."

"Good night my Lady," he said. She turned to leave. "My Lady?"

"Yes?"

"When you asked her if she wanted to go with you…what did she tell you?"

"Oh," Madam Red said, smiling at the memory, "she said that she couldn't pay for room and board."

"I see," he said and she left.

Soon the entire house was asleep, save for the butler who stared out the window, long after his candle had gone out.


	15. Chapter 15

Sebastian woke up early, as usual, and for a wonderful two seconds, he felt that all was right with the world.

And then the events of yesterday came to him.

He had a daughter, a little nameless vampire cambion, who was born from an abusive alcoholic human and who hated him.

Everything seemed hopeless until he remembered that Madam Red had generously agreed to take the girl in for a while. But for how long? Madam Red would die eventually; humans didn't live that long; and then where would he put the girl?

He could put her up for adoption, or put her in foster care. That might work for a time.

But it sounded so _horrible_. His own parents would never have done that to him. Cambion or not, she was still his daughter, and eventually he would have to take care of her, take care of her _properly._ That meant no orphanages, no adoption, no foster parents. She was his responsibility and he would take it like a man.

He groaned. Talking was all well and good, but he still didn't want to get up and face the world, knowing that he was in disgrace. Sweet, well-behaved little girl or not, cambions were shameful.

Lying in bed wouldn't solve anything. He rose up with another groan and prepared for the day.

Madam Red was already awake and ready. She was anxious to leave; she had to go to work tomorrow. The young master was accordingly shook awake and Sebastian left to see to the girl—his _daughter_.

She was sleeping on the floor, next to a window, without a pillow or a blanket or anything. Maybe she wasn't used to such luxuries. Or maybe she thought that it would be rude to use them. It didn't necessarily matter to him. He knew that vampires loved being cold.

She was sleeping in the traditional vampire way: eyes covered, mouth open. There were many variants on this pose: she slept with her arm over her eyes and the tip of her tongue sticking out, like a kitten.

Sebastian hadn't had a chance to look at her properly. Besides, she was asleep. There was no harm in looking.

So he looked.

She looked a bit like him: a thinner, paler, tinier, female version of him, but of him nonetheless. Same black hair, with the bangs falling around her face like his'. Same face shape, same nose, same mouth, same eyes…If she cut her hair, she could probably pass for his younger twin brother, if such a thing could even exist.

He heard Madam Red calling; it was time to go.

He knelt down next to her and gently shook her shoulder.

"Hey, um…" He remembered that she didn't have a name. "Uh…Wake up. It's time to wake up now…" He shook a bit harder.

She woke up suddenly and kicked him, springing away from him and landing on all fours, breathing hard with her eyes turning unholy. She looked around in fear and confusion until she remembered where she was and relaxed.

"H-Hi," she said awkwardly, standing up. "I'm sorry for kicking you. Does it hurt?"

"Not really," he said, forcing a smile and rubbing his side. That would bruise later. "I'm sorry for waking you, but it's time for you to leave."

"Leave? Leave where?" Again the panicked look, but she remembered that she was going with the multicolored lady and relaxed. "Oh—right. Okay."

Sebastian nodded and stood up.

"I'm afraid that you don't have time to eat, but I made breakfast, which you can eat in the cab." He looked around; she didn't have any shoes or a coat; all she had was that ragged torn dress, and he didn't have any time to properly search for something. "Shall we go?"

The girl nodded and obediently followed him to the front door, where Madam Red and Ciel were waiting for her. Ciel began talking with her while Madam Red pulled Sebastian aside.

"You should say something to her," she said.

"Say something? Like what?"

"Like anything. Words of encouragement. Say that you love her. Say that you're happy to meet her. Say anything! You can't just let her leave like a stranger."

Letting her leave like a stranger had actually been the plan (and he thought that it was a fine one too) but he didn't argue. He waited until the young master had finished talking with the girl and quietly gestured for her to come over, away from the other two. He knelt down in front of her and wondered what he should say.

"Listen to Madam Red," he finally said. "Do whatever she says and don't argue. Be a polite, good girl and—" he paused, thinking, "—and I'll come and visit you. Often." He closed his eyes. That was a terrible farewell speech. But she didn't seem to mind. She blinked at him, and, seeing that he was done, dropped a curtsey and prepared to leave. "Wait." She turned around to look at him and he took another deep breath. "There's another person at the Madam Red's place—someone different. Someone…not human. And whatever you do, you _must not_ tell this person that you're my daughter. Well, don't tell anyone, but above all, _never tell this person_. Never tell this person that you're related to me in any way. And if you see this person coming at you with a pair of scissors, you don't question it. You don't question anything, you don't say anything, you just _run_. Understand? You just _run_. Run like your life depends on it, and don't stop running until you're positive that they won't be able to catch you. Understand?"

"Listen to Madam Red," the girl repeated. "Obey her and don't argue. Be polite and well-behaved. I never tell anyone that I'm related to you and I definitely don't tell this other person. And if this other person comes at me with scissors, I run. I don't do anything else, I just run."

Sebastian nodded approvingly.

"Good. Er…Good girl. Very nice." He slowly raised his hand and awkwardly patted her head. He looked over at Madam Red, who nodded and clapped her hands with exaggerated cheerfulness.

"Well now, shall we leave?" she said brightly. "We have a big, exciting day ahead of us!"

The girl nodded and curtsied, first to Ciel and then to Sebastian. She followed Madam Red outside, where the cab was already waiting. They got in and the cab left, with Madam Red waving her hand goodbye.

Ciel waved back and didn't stop waving until the cab was out of sight. Then he dropped his hand and looked up at Sebastian, who was contemplating something.

"Well?"

"My Lord?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing my Lord. Nothing at all."

This wasn't a lie. Of course he was thinking _some_ thing, but he was so confused about everything that it was like he was thinking nothing.

He stared at the area where the cab had disappeared for a bit longer and then went back inside the house to prepare to leave for Phantomhive manor.


	16. Chapter 16

_Author's Note: I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who has read—or is reading—this story and to apologize for the short chapters and slow updates; I'm trying to juggle three stories at once. One chapter will be updated every day or every other day, and again I apologize for the short chapters, which usually end in cliffhangers. Thank you for reading! Really, really thank you!_

The girl had remained silent throughout the whole trip. She only nodded politely to Madam Red's speeches and answered in one-word phrases to her questions. She ate sparingly of the breakfast that Sebastian had packed for them.

"Sebastian is an excellent cook," Madam Red said. "And he's a very nice man, once you get to know him a little bit. I understand that you're upset about your mother and how he…wasn't always there for you, but I think that if you give it time, you'll learn to love him."

"Yes ma'am," the girl said and was silent.

It was a relief to both of them to arrive at Madam Red's home. She lived in a very nice house, a bit aways from the bustling streets of London but still close to the hospital where she worked. The cab pulled up to the door and both of them got out. Madam Red paid the fare and the girl watched the cab pull away, wondering what would happen to her next.

"Mad _ann_!"

She jumped and whirled around. Someone was coming out of the house and running towards them—someone completely red. It was a beautiful shade of red: light and intense and swirling around the figure—it was the shade of passion. This person was unnaturally passionate about…everything.

"Madann, you have _no idea_ what I've _suffered_ today; there were these _rude_ workmen and then I got a call from _Will_ saying that I still had _work_ to do and _then_ he had the _gall_ to say—Who's this?"

The person paused in their incessant speech—like a flute—to look down at the girl. Madam Red was immediately on top of it.

"This is a little orphan girl who somehow wandered into Phantomhive Manor," she said, putting her arm around the girl's shoulder. "She doesn't have anyone to take care of her and because Ciel is so busy, I offered to take her in for a time."

"Oh! How nice," the person stared at her, who was staring up at them.

The black butler had been right—this person wasn't human. They didn't smell human at all, but what was even more confusing was that she didn't know what gender they were: male or female. They smelled, biologically, male, but they also smelled like a female, as if they thought that they were a woman. It was very odd.

"You know who she looks like, a little bit?" the person said suddenly. "The Earl's butler—my dear sweet Bass—"

"Now Grell," Madam Red interrupted hastily, "will you please take care of this girl and teach her the ropes? She's our responsibility now, you know."

"Certainly Madann. What's your name?"

"Oh, she doesn't have one."

"'Doesn't have one?' Then what the hell are we supposed to call her? 'Here girl!' Like a dog?"

"You're so pretty," the girl breathed, enchanted by the lovely red emanating from this confusing person…

The person—Grell—looked surprised and then burst into a wide, pointy-toothed smile.

" _What_ a delightful child!"

"Isn't she, though?" Madam Red said, smiling down at her. "Isn't she just a perfect little lady?"

They paused and shared a look. _"Lady."_

"Listen," Madam Red said gently. "It's probably unfair for us to name you; we'll leave that to…someone else, but in the meantime, would you mind a nickname? 'Lady?'"

"'Lady?'" the girl repeated softly, turning it over in her mind. It was a bit elegant for poor girl like herself, but it sounded nicer than being called "bitch"; besides, she had to be called something, right? And it seemed to make the multicolored and the red lady happy, which was important.

"Alright," she said, "ma'am. You can call me Lady."

Madam Red and Grell grinned at each other.

"Perfect!"


	17. Chapter 17

A week had passed since the girl's arrival, and her subsequent departure to Madam Red's house. Ciel was still agonizing over the case, and Sebastian was absolutely no help. He always seemed preoccupied with something; it always took about five minutes to get him to pay attention, and then he was gone again in five seconds.

Sebastian knew that the young lord was irritated with him; he was irritated with himself. The girl was fine; she was with Madam Red and was being taken care of; he had given her instructions; she was safe, safe, safe; stop biting your finger already.

He had developed a habit in his youth of biting the tip of his little finger when he was nervous or pensive, a habit which he was sure he had grown out of—that or had fought it off. Unfortunately, with the return of his daughter came the return of the biting. It looked very unprofessional, and worse: it was completely subconscious. He would only realize that he was doing it after the young master would give him a strange look…and when the young master got immune to it, only when the young master would say,

"Sebastian, you're doing it again."

He tried everything to break the habit. He concocted a disgusting mixture of vinegar, garlic, salt, and nail-biting deterrents and would dip his little fingers into the mixture three or five times a day. It didn't matter about the others; he only chewed the little finger; the others were safe from his teeth and the concoction. The only problem with the mixture was that he always wore gloves and he couldn't taste the foulness through them. So he tried dipping the little finger of his gloves into the mixture as well, which probably would have worked except that then his gloves smelled horrendous and made everything he touched smell awful as well.

He had heard of various ways of breaking habits, such as intentionally slapping the wrist if one realizes that they're about to chew their little fingers again. Unfortunately, he usually didn't realize that he was doing it, and when he did, it was usually too late to go around and slap his wrists. Besides, it looked decidedly odd. The servants were already giving him strange looks for suddenly biting his fingers; he didn't need to be sent to Bedlam for hitting himself.

But what was _most_ irritating about it all was that he himself didn't know why he was nervous...or anxious…or what-have-you. He usually felt very calm and orderly, his usual self, going about his day, making sure that all was well, elegantly continuing his duties as butler…

"Sebastian, you're doing it again."

Sebastian cursed himself in his mind and tried other tricks: keeping his hands always behind his back (extremely uncomfortable; he was a butler, not a convict), keeping his hands in his pockets (unprofessional; he looked like a bum), biting his fingers until they bled (which hurt and didn't deter him at all).

Ciel Phantomhive was flipping through the files about the mysterious deaths (yet another attack!) and looked up to talk to his butler about it. Sebastian was standing in front of him, looking extremely nervous and distracted, with his little finger shoved in his mouth up to his knuckle, gnawing away as if his life depended on it. Ciel watched this unnatural scene for a bit and then finally said,

"Look, Sebastian, we can go and visit Madam Red and make sure that the girl is settling in. We'll go tomorrow, if you'd like."

The finger-biting immediately stopped.


	18. Chapter 18

"Lady? Could you come here please?"

The girl had been passing Madam Red's room when her voice called her back. She was sitting on the bed, wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

"Close the door, please, dear."

She did so and stood in front of Madam Red, who smiled sadly at her.

"My nephew—the Earl of Phantomhive—and your father are coming here tomorrow," she said. "They called just now; they want to check up on you. And before they come, I want to tell you something." She took a deep breath. "We all make mistakes in life—everyone does. Some of these mistakes are minor, some are major. The minor ones might impact your day, but the major ones might impact your life. But it's not the mistakes that can ruin your life, it's what happens afterwards based on your choices."

She took another deep breath and opened up her bathrobe, revealing a huge scar on her stomach. It looked fairly recent; maybe it occurred about a month ago? And it was circular and jagged, which was odd, as if someone had thrust something into her and then yanked it out again.

"Grell did that," Madam Red said softly, gently tracing the scar with her fingertip. "Grell—my best friend in the whole world. Both of us…made some major mistakes. We…made bad decisions and almost ruined our entire lives, but thankfully we were stopped by Ciel and Sebastian—your father." She took another deep breath. "I almost died that night. Worse than that, _Ciel_ almost died that night. But we were stopped. We realized the mistakes that we had made." Another breath. "Grell almost killed me, but thankfully I was able to drag myself to a hospital on time, which saved me. Grell got demoted and was put on probation for a time. When all was over, she came and visited me. She apologized. She said that she was given quite a lot of time to think and realized that there was nothing she valued more than our friendship. She said that she would always treasure and remember what we had and would understand completely if I never wanted to see her again; what she did was unforgivable." She paused and looked away. "On that day, I had a choice to make," she said quietly. "I could have never forgiven her. I could have turned her away from my door and refused to see her again. I was _very_ angry with her; if we hadn't been stopped in time, we could have done more terrible things; I could have killed _Ciel_ , my own beloved darling nephew!...Or I could have forgiven her, apologized to her too, we could have apologized and forgiven each other and our friendship would resume, as if it had never happened, and the mistakes that we had made would bring us closer together than ever." She paused again. "I chose to forgive her. We made up. We swore to each other that we would never make the same mistakes again. And we never did." She breathed again. "Then one day, she convinced me to go and see Ciel again, to apologize to him, to beg for forgiveness. Sebastian was not happy to see us; he almost killed us on the spot—maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that," she said, seeing the expression on the girl's face. "The point is, we understood that we made mistakes and appeared to Ciel to acknowledge them. We asked for forgiveness, but we also recognized that what we did was unforgivable. That doesn't make sense, does it? But in a way it does. Life is funny that way," she said, thinking. "And you know what he did?"

"What?" the girl asked. Madam Red beamed, tears springing to her eyes.

"He forgave us. He knew that what we did was wrong, and yet he still forgave us. And now I have my nephew back—something I was sure was impossible to achieve." She became silent for a time, thinking. "I would not be as happy as I am today if I didn't forgive and was forgiven," she said. "I wouldn't have my best friend and I wouldn't have my family. I used to pity myself for what I had and had lost, but now I love myself for what I had lost and regained. They say that to err is human, but to forgive is divine. I am just a human, but I have forgiven, and that makes me divine." She paused again. "You might be wondering why I'm telling you all this." The girl nodded. "Your father," she said seriously, "made several major mistakes in his life. He walked away from you. He never looked for you. He never cared about you. But now he's back in your life and now you have to deal with that. You have to deal with the mistakes that he has made. And maybe you've made some mistakes in your life in regards to him, and now you'll have to deal with that too. I said that to forgive is divine, and I stand by that." A pause. "I find it positively ridiculous that I, a mere human, can forgive and be divine but you unholies, who are superior to us humans in every way, cannot. So that's why I'm telling you all this." She grabbed the girl's hands and stared into her eyes. "Don't let your life be ruined by the major mistakes that you have made. Don't allow yourself to be unhappy due to the major mistakes that others have made. Forgive your father, Lady. If you forgive him, you'll both be so much happier. And you should forgive yourself for any mistakes that you have made. You'll both be so much happier. I'm saying this for your benefit, because I like you both and I care about you both and I don't want to see two people who I care about have their lives ruined. I know what it's like. I've been there, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Do you understand?"

The girl nodded.

"Yes ma'am."

Madam Red nodded and smiled weakly.

"Alright. Well, think everything over and go tell Grell the good news, then help her with tomorrow's preparations. And tell her to be careful; she gets so excited when her darling _Bassy_ is around…"

The girl nodded again, curtsied, and left the room.

Madam Red sat at the window and looked outside, thinking. She remained like that until Grell came in to help her retire.


	19. Chapter 19

Sebastian was biting his finger again, but less so this time: instead of hardcore chewing, he was lightly nibbling on the tip of his little finger. He was still looking nervous and stressed, but less so than usual. Nevertheless, it still looked extremely weird, especially for a butler who had always remained the definition of calm in the very worst of situations.

Ciel watched him for a while and started talking.

"I've talked to Madam Red several times this week," he said. "Just on the phone. She said that the girl is settling in nicely. She says that she's extremely smart and quickly picks things up; she can already sew and make tea and do laundry and all that—unfortunately, she can't read. Madam Red tried to teach her once but it didn't go well; she kept on talking about how the colors and the sounds were all wrong and didn't understand anything. But Madam Red and Grell really like having her around; at night they dress her up like a little doll. They're all really happy there, so you really should stop worrying about it."

Sebastian tried to say that he wasn't worrying, but he couldn't. It must have been a lie. Their contract said that he never lie, and the contract had unusual ways of keeping the rules. After the contract, he was physically unable to lie. His lips could move but no sound could come out, and that was a best-case scenario. Usually he just remained silent.

He remained silent now, dropping his hands onto his lap and resisting the urge to bite his fingers some more.

They arrived at Madam Red's house; she was waiting for them outside.

"Hello!" she called out, waving to them. "Do come in! Sit down; we have the tea all ready for you, so…"

"BASSIEEEEE!" Grell shouted and lunged for Sebastian, who easily stepped aside, resulting in Grell crashing into the side of the carriage.

"Hello, Grell," Sebastian said tiredly. "As energetic as ever, I see."

"Oh, _Bassy_ , it truly has been _far_ too long, hasn't it?" Grell cooed, sidling up closer to him and grabbing his arm. "I've been _longing_ and _aching_ and _waiting_ for you…"

"Indeed?" Sebastian sighed as they went inside.

Madam Red's house was odd as she didn't believe in servant-master segregation. They all sat down, together, in the same room, and had tea, as if they were equals. It was a bit odd, but one got used to it. Sebastian always hated it because when he was sitting down, there was nowhere to run from Grell without appearing rude. She always took these chances to curl up as close as possible to Sebastian.

"We've been preparing for this moment for _ages_!" Madam Red said. "We've been planning all day! Just _wait_ until you see her; she is just so _cute_ ; where _is_ she? Lady! Come inside!"

There was a pause and then the girl entered shyly. She was dressed in a little maid's outfit, which would have been cute enough, except that Madam Red had also made her put on cat ears and a little cat tail.

"Well? What do you think?" Madam Red said, clapping her hands. "Isn't she just so _adorable_?"

Ciel nodded and took a sip of his tea.

"Elizabeth would just _love_ this," he said.

"What about you, Sebastian? What do you think?"

"Very nice," he said, focusing only on his teacup.

"Did you even _look_ at her?"

"I did," he said. "And she looks very nice."

"How can you say that?" Grell said, shocked. "She's just the _cutest_! And so _sweet_ too; she thinks that I'm pretty; she says that I'm the _loveliest_ shade of red; isn't that just so _nice_? And you know that she's an orphan, so if you decide not to fill me with your glorious unholy seed, we could always adopt her and pretend that she's our real daughter…"

Sebastian choked on his tea and started coughing. Ciel smirked behind his cup.

"Grell," Madam Red said nervously, "why don't you go and check on the cake? It might be ready by now…"

" _What_? _Me?_ _Why_? Send Lady to do it; I have my beloved _Bassy_ here…"

"Lady is too young to be around hot ovens," Madam Red said, lying through her teeth. "And I'd be much more comfortable if you would do it. Please? It would only take a second."

" _Fiiine_ ," Grell sighed and stood up. "Lady, you come too and keep me company."

The girl curtsied and left with Grell.

"Who is this 'Lady?'" Sebastian asked once he was sure that they were out of earshot.

"Oh? You don't know? We call her 'Lady' as a nickname; it's just until you give her a real name…"

" _Me_? Why should _I_ give her a real name?"

"Because she's _your_ daughter," Madam Red said sternly, "and because she deserves a real name chosen specifically for her by her own father."

"But I don't know anything about children," Sebastian said a bit pathetically, "and _especially_ about little girls. Can't _you_ name her? I'm sure that she'll appreciate it more…"

"Well, she won't. All children love their names because it was chosen for them specifically—not for anyone else, but especially for them—by their parents. So you should name her."

"I don't know any girl names," he mumbled.

"Of course you do! Don't you have a mother? What's her name?"

"Rose."

"An aunt? What's her name?"

"Three aunts: Elena, Day, and Sarah."

"A grandmother?"

"Two grandmothers: Lucy and Divine."

"You have some unusual girl names," Madam Red commented.

"That's the loose English translation of their names. Their real names are Lucrenia and Devineie."

"Interesting…" Madam Red murmured. "Well, surely you could use one of those names? And you read books, don't you? Perhaps there's a name that has caught your fancy, one that you might like…"

"I don't know," Sebastian said coldly. "I have never paid that much attention to names."

"Sebastian," Madam Red said, glaring at him. "No matter how hard you try, you're _not_ getting out of this. How many times do I have to tell you? Lady is your daughter and you are her father and you…"

There was a crashing sound in the hallway. Madam Red rose to investigate.

"Grell! What is it? What happened?"

Grell blushed and began picking up the broken remains of teacups.

"Nothing," she growled. "Just tripped and fell."

"Well, are you alright?"

"Fine, just fine."

"Well, hurry up with the tea then, and come in."

"Yes Madann."

Madam Red, after assuring herself that Grell was okay, went back into the room where the discussion about the girl had tactfully stopped.

Grell stood up and went back to the kitchen, mechanically carrying the tray filled with shattered glass. Once or twice she reached into her pocket and rubbed something.

A pair of scissors.


	20. Chapter 20

The girl was in the kitchen, cutting the cake from the oven into slices. Grell appeared silently behind her, but it didn't matter because she already knew that she was there.

"Hello, Miss Sutcliff," the girl said without turning around. "Did they want something? What is it? What happened?"

"Oh, nothing," Grell said, putting the tray filled with broken teacups on the kitchen table. "Say...Lady, would you mind coming outside with me for a bit? There's something that needs to be carried inside and I'd appreciate your help."

The girl nodded and went outside, Grell following her. Once they were outside she realized that she had accidently brought the knife out with her. She turned to go and put it back inside but Grell was blocking the door, looking a bit stormy.

"Lady," she said, "I've just overheard a rather interesting bit of information…something about Sebastian being your father…?"

She blinked at her.

"That's what they say, yes." After all, there was no point in lying if she knew everything already.

Grell slowly nodded and reached into her pocket.

"So…If he's your father, that means that you're his daughter, right?"

"Yes…"

"Which means that he did it with some other woman, right?"

"Right…"

Grell nodded.

"I see."

She flipped out a pair of scissors and caught them. The girl froze. What had he said about scissors?

"It's nothing personal, Lady," Grell assured her. "I'm just erasing all the evidence."

She slammed the two scissors together and they began glowing and growing, stretching until they turned into some sort of strange metallic monster which grinded…

A chainsaw.

"Of course, since my demotion it's only temporary," Grell said, looking admiringly at the Death Scythe, "but it should be enough to remove one teeny little girl."

 _"And if you see this person coming at you with a pair of scissors, you don't question it. You don't question anything, you don't say anything, you just run. Understand? You just run. Run like your life depends on it, and don't stop running until you're positive that they won't be able to catch you. Understand?"_

Grell lowered the Death Scythe and started it up; it began whirring like some kind of beast…

"So sorry, Lady."

 _"You don't question anything, you don't say anything, you just run."_

It was as if in slow motion, Grell began running towards her with the thing in front of her…

 _"Run…"_

She rose it up over her head to swing it…

 _"Run."_

The Death Scythe was falling down…

 _"RUN!"_

She ran.

"By the way, has anyone seen Grell?" Madam Red asked. "I've sent her for the cake and for more tea but I haven't seen her since. And what about Lady? I want Sebastian to _really_ look at her; she is just so _cute_ those cat ears…"

Sebastian looked away.

"What? Don't you think she's cute?"

"She looks very nice."

"But I didn't ask you if she looked nice; I asked you if she looked cute."

Sebastian shrugged.

"Sebastian," Madam Red said in a teasing, warning way.

Sebastian was about to answer when there was a scream outside.

"MAAAAAD _AAANN_!"

"That's Grell!" Madam Red said, standing up. "Goodness, I wonder what could have possibly happened?"

They went outside to see Grell tearing across the lawn, running towards them, crying.

"MAAAD _ANN_!"

She crashed headfirst into the red brick wall.

"Grell! What is it? What happened? Are you alright?" Madam Red carefully helped Grell up and everyone stared. There was something different about her; nobody knew what…

"Where are your glasses?" Ciel asked.

"I lost them," Grell sobbed. "I lost them when I was just about to get her…"

"Get her? Get who? Who were you going to get?"

"Where's the girl?" Sebastian asked. "What did you do to the girl?"

Everyone looked at him (except for Grell, who looked at the black door). He had a panicked expression on his face.

"Where's the girl? _What did you do to my girl?"_

"I k—" Grell whimpered.

"You what? _What did you do to my girl?_ "

"I ki—"

Sebastian now had her by the throat…

" _What did you do to my little girl?"_

"I killed her," Grell whispered. "It was a complete accident, Sebastian; oh god, I'm so sorry…"

Sebastian dropped Grell and sprinted in the direction that she had come from. Everyone followed him, with Madam Red assisting Grell.

Sebastian stopped suddenly. There was a kitchen knife in the ground, as if it had been thrown, surrounded by a bunch of beads: the beads of Grell's glasses chains.

"Lady?" he called out. "Lady?"

A little bit aways from the knife was a grove of trees; Sebastian cautiously approached it. Two scissors were imbedded into the trunk of one of them, with the sap dripping down.

"I felt her blood," Grell sobbed. "I felt her warm, sticky blood on my hands and everything…"

"Lady?" Sebastian shouted again. "Lady?"

No answer.

"Sebastian," Madam Red said gently, "there must have been some mistake; you know that Grell can't see anything; I'm sure that she's just fine…"

Sebastian whirled around; his eyes had grown demonic; hellfire burned in them; he again had Grell by the throat and this time he was squeezing…

"Oh, _there_ she is," Ciel said, pointing upwards. Everyone looked up.

The girl was sitting in the scissors tree on one of the limbs, clutching Grell's glasses. She didn't look at all hurt; just frightened and confused.

"Oh," Sebastian said, unable to keep relief out of his voice. "Oh." He released Grell and held his arms out to the girl. "It's alright now; come down."

The girl clutched the glasses tighter and looked down nervously at Grell.

"He won't hurt you anymore; come down now," Sebastian said, glaring at Grell, who sniffed.

"Come down now, dear!" Madam Red shouted at her and the girl cautiously climbed down. Sebastian sighed with relief and collapsed in front of her on his knees, holding her by the shoulders and examining her everywhere.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt? Did he hurt you? I swear, if I see so much as a _scratch…_ "

"She didn't hurt me," the girl said. "I'm fine."

"If you're sure," Sebastian said, still glaring at Grell. Then he picked the girl up and began walking back towards the house.

"What is it? Where are you going?" Madam Red asked.

"Back to Phantomhive; it isn't safe here anymore," he said coldly.

Grell howled.

"B-Bassy! Sebastian, I'm sorry. Lady, I'm so, so sorry; I didn't mean it; you know how I can get so excited sometimes; Lady! Sebastian!"

The girl peeked over Sebastian's shoulder. Grell's lovely red was fading and turning deeper, until her whole body was an odd dark blue with a greenish tinge—the color of overwhelming sadness.

 _"I would not be as happy as I am today if I didn't forgive and was forgiven…"_

"Put me down, please," the girl said softly.

"What? Why?"

"I can go with you, if you want, but I have to do something first."

Sebastian shrugged and set the girl down. She hesitantly approached the weeping Grell and held out her glasses.

Sebastian made a move to stop her.

"La—"

Grell sniffed and looked at her in surprise (or at least where she thought she was). The girl took Grell's hand and gave her the glasses.

"I forgive you," she said. "Don't worry about it anymore. It's in the past and it's not going to happen again. I forgive you."

Grell stared at her and then she began to grin. The shade of passion was slowly returning…

"Lady is so _niiiice_!" Grell wailed and swept her up into a hug, which made Sebastian take several more steps forward, looking absolutely murderous. "I swear to god, I'll never do anything to you ever again! I realize the error of my ways; it's not _your_ fault that you were born, no…" She grinned even wider, "it's your _mother's_ fault! From henceforth, she will be…"

"…You're not going to kill her, are you?" the girl said, clutching Grell tighter. "You can't kill her! Please don't kill her!"

Sebastian opened up his mouth and paused.

"…He's not going to kill your mother," he said finally, looking confused. " _Right?_ " followed by another glare to Grell.

"Of course not!" Grell said quickly. "Perish the thought! Never!"

And then something wonderful happened:

The girl smiled.

Not a fake smile, not an evil smile, but a real, genuine smile based off of pure happiness. Everyone gazed at her in surprise, most of all Sebastian. She had his smile.

The girl quickly hugged Grell back and stepped away. She curtseyed to the Madam and her butler, thanked them profusely for their kindness, and then the three of them went away, with Madam Red and Grell waving behind them as if their lives depended on it.

The girl and the young master fell asleep on the carriage ride back, leaving Sebastian alone and awake. He stared out the window at the passing countryside, thinking about what had happened with Grell when she said that she would kill the girl's mother.

At first, he had wanted to say, "No one is going to kill your mother," but somehow, he couldn't. He was physically unable to say it. That meant that it was a lie. Which meant that someone was going to kill the girl's mother—or rather, cambionic vessel. But who would do that?

The girl twitched in her sleep and smiled. Sebastian watched her for a time.

 _"It doesn't matter,"_ he decided. _"It doesn't matter at all."_

He gently touched the girl's head and felt a little tired himself. It had been a long, stressful day.

So the carriage continued on its way to Phantomhive.


	21. Chapter 21

The girl very quickly realized how different living at Phantomhive was from living with Madam Red.

Namely, she realized how much she hated living at Phantomhive.

It had started in the morning. The black man had woken up and entered the kitchen to prepare for the day and had seen her, who had been awake all night.

"…What are you drinking?" he had asked her.

"Coffee," the girl said, taking a sip. She liked coffee; it had been her one consolation when living with her mother, as well as making her more alert and counterbalancing her insomnia. She always drank it absolutely black—as strong as possible with no sugar or cream or anything. Absolutely delicious.

"You shouldn't drink coffee," the black man had told her severely. "It isn't good for you."

She had frowned at him and finished her pot of coffee.

Then came lunchtime. She was helping the butler with serving lunch to the Earl and had accidently dropped a plate.

"Shit!"

She bent down to clean it up and when she rose up again, everyone was staring at her.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"What did you just say?" Sebastian asked quietly.

"I said 'shit.'"

"You shouldn't say that. It's rude and unprofessional."

In her defense, she had tried to behave. She had restricted her cursing and only allowed herself four cups of coffee every day: one in the morning, one at lunch, one at dinner, and one at evening tea. Nothing satisfied the butler. He criticized everything she did:

"Don't sit with your legs crossed."

"Don't yawn in the presence of the master."

"Don't walk around in pants."

But above all he criticized the coffee—her one true love. He tried to wean her off the coffee by secretly buying decaf and slipping it into the caffeinated coffee jar. It didn't work; she smelled the decaf and picked out every individual bean. He tried serving her just decaf. That didn't work; she'd toss the cup and make herself another using normal coffee. He refused to buy anything except decaf coffee, which also didn't work because she began using her salary to buy normal coffee and drank it on the sly. He tried filling up her coffee jars with hot chocolate, which also didn't work because she refused to drink it.

Then one day he snapped and threw out all the coffee that she had been hoarding secretly in her room. He refused to buy any more and always supervised her shopping so that she was unable to buy it again. The girl was distraught; she complained to the Earl who said that he couldn't do anything about it. And when she heard _that_ , she grew so furious that she began swearing at him and cursing the butler, using words that not even sailors would dare to use. And when Sebastian heard about _that,_ he grounded her.

She had never been grounded before. Her mother didn't believe in grounding. She believed in slapping and punching and kicking as the best way of inflicting punishment and making sure that the mistake that she had made would not happen again. So it was very confusing to the girl when Sebastian told her that she was being punished when he hadn't even thrown a chair at her.

Frankly, she didn't understand grounding. He told her that she wasn't allowed to leave the manor property and she wasn't allowed any dessert at dinner and every evening she had to stand in a corner, facing the wall, and think about what she had done. She didn't know why this was a punishment. It didn't hurt at all.

She didn't understand grounding, so she ignored it.

If Madam Red would offer to take her into town and help her with shopping, completely forgetting that she was grounded, the girl would accept and go with her, also forgetting that she technically wasn't allowed to leave the manor.

She blatantly refused to stand in corners every evening and would go to the kitchen and play poker with the servants.

She actually had no idea why the butler had mentioned dessert in the punishment. She had never had dessert before so it being forbidden to her didn't impact her life much.

When Sebastian heard of her ignoring her grounding, he was absolutely livid. She could smell it. His black was streaked with fiery, angry red. She prepared herself; now she was definitely getting a slap…

But he didn't hit her. That was the weirdest part of it all. He sat her down and lectured her for several hours but he never once made a move to hit her. And when the lecture was over he said that he was now upping the punishment. Now she was not allowed to go outside unless constantly supervised, she wasn't allowed to personally assist the nobles, she would be given bland, nourishing food instead of the yummy things that the rest of the servants were allowed to eat and now she had to go to her room and stay there for the rest of the evening at a certain time.

Again, she didn't understand grounding. So again she ignored all the punishments—or at least she tried to. Sebastian was now diligently watching her and made sure that all of the rules were strictly enforced.

She wondered what she was learning from this experience. Sebastian often wondered the same thing.

She frequently said that she hated him. This was usually at mealtimes when he would take a sip from whatever she was drinking and throw it out because she had somehow gotten her mitts on some coffee.

Who knows how long this would have gone on if the Earl hadn't invited over a man and his wife to discuss business with them. The wife was a philanthropist; her specialty was taking care of children. Upon realizing that the Earl had employed a little girl as a maid—really, she looked four years old and was still barely two feet tall—she thought about child labor and pondered the morality of reporting the child. On the one hand, it _was_ child labor; the Earl had employed a child and was even paying her. On the other hand, the child looked fairly healthy and seemed to be getting three meals a day. But one time she overheard a conversation between the Earl and his butler, where they were specifically discussing the girl and abuse.

She didn't know it, but they were talking about the girl's mother abusing her. But it didn't matter, because that conversation really hit her and she called child services.

Every child service has at least one unholy working there, just in case an unholy child would be mistaken for a human one. So upon receiving the call, the girl was picked up from Phantomhive and taken to child services, where she was recognized by the unholy employee as a vampire. The girl was then shipped out to another child service building, this one specializing in unholy children.

So Sebastian had already lost his daughter. It hadn't even been a month since she had arrived in his life and already she was gone.


	22. Chapter 22

"But… _why_?"

Ciel shrugged at Madam Red's question and avoided looking at her distraught and confused face.

"The lady was against child labor. And she overheard us talking about Lady and her mother and thought that we were talking about what we had done—or would do—to her. In any case, it doesn't matter anymore. She's gone."

"But… _why_?"

"I just told you!"

"I know, but… _why!"_ She looked around for any signs of help and her gaze fell on Sebastian, who was unusually silent as he poured the tea. "And you; why aren't you doing anything? She's your _daughter_."

"It's better this way," he said quietly.

"'It's better this way?' How, in any possible way, shape, or form, is it better this way? She's alone; she's with strangers; she's away from you, her only family…How is it 'better this way?'"

"She hates me. She'll be much happier away from me. And then she might get adopted by another family—a family that would really, truly love her and actually know how to properly take care of her."

"You could do all those things! And it'll be even better for her if you _did_ do all those things, because you're her actual flesh-and-blood." Sebastian was silent. "For god's sakes," she exploded in anger, "can't you do one thing— _one thing_ —and _not_ think about _yourself_? You demons! You're all the same; all you care about are your souls and your contracts and you never once give a thought to anyone except—"

Sebastian whirled around; demonic eyes flashing; but while his manner was angry, his eyes and his face showed nothing but pain and despair.

" _It's over, alright? I can't_ do _anything anymore. She's_ gone _, and absolutely_ nothing _I do will change that._ There are numerous tests that one has to take in order to get back a child from child services—I couldn't raise her for _two weeks_ and you're suddenly expecting me to be an _expert_ in _parenting_ just because I _lost her_? Because I did— _I lost her_. I _lost her_ , and now she's _gone_ , and _nothing will change that_. Even if I did somehow—miraculously—pass those tests, the final decision is up to the child on whether-or-not she wants to go back and live with the parent again. And, in case you've already forgotten, _she hates me_. So even if I _did_ manage to pass the tests, she wouldn't choose me." His angry slowly died down, leaving only sorrow. "She wouldn't choose me," he said quietly. "She never would and she never will. I've…been wrong too many times for her forgiveness now."

Everyone was silent. Sebastian finished pouring the tea and bowed to Madam Red.

"Please pardon my outburst," he murmured and left the room.

Living at the Unholy Child Service and Protection Care Facility was odd. It was much more competent—it wasn't like living with Madam Red, who didn't know anything about unholies, or at Phantomhive, where the black man knew something about unholies but never actually applied the information. Nobody made the girl do anything—no cleaning, no serving, no nothing. She could wake up whenever she wanted to, go down to the mess hall at whatever time she wanted and eat as little and drink as much coffee as she could, then she could spend the rest of the time wandering around the grounds. There was no learning that she was forced to do—it was a social building, not a school. She probably would have liked it if she hadn't been so confused. She had never been in such a place before. No one hit her, no one criticized her or complained about her; she could curse and drink coffee and no one made her go to bed at a so-called "decent hour"; she could sit outside and do nothing, she could lie on the roof and look up at the stars; she could do everything she wanted to do and there was no one to tell her not to.

But what she liked most about living there was the books.

She couldn't read as other unholies—or humans—do. She didn't understand "reading." If someone held up a card that said "A" on it, she wouldn't have understood that it symbolized the "A" sound and would have written it down over and over again, and then moved on to "B." If someone had shown her "A", she would have protested and said that the symbol didn't match the "A" sound—because, of course, as a vampire, she had her own ideas about what symbols match the "A" sound. Even if the symbol in her head did resemble the "A" for the "A" sound, it probably wouldn't have matched the "B" symbol, or the "C" symbol, and so on and so forth. This is true for all vampires; normal reading doesn't apply to them.

But the facility still had books that she could read. They were called "synesthetic books" and the girl absolutely adored them. There were three kinds of synesthetic books: books that were smelled, books that were heard, and books that were felt. The "felt books" wouldn't have looked so odd to a human; they would have been easily mistaken for braille books. The "scent books" were a bit different: they were absolutely blank inside, but each page had been scented with something. All one had to do was open it to a certain page and the scents would be released, telling the vampire a story through the smell. The "hearing books" were essentially music boxes designed to look like books. They were wound up and then music would play, and the vampire would hear the story through the music.

The girl loved these books. She usually ignored the "feeling books" because she couldn't read Braille (no one had taught it to her), but she spent countless hours leaning over a book, eyes closed, smelling the pages, or winding up boxes that looked like books and listening to the beautiful music that tinkled out of them. She learned a lot of stories from these books, stories that she had never gotten the chance to know before. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, beloved children's stories that everyone knows. And then she moved on to the other books: _Don Quixote_ , _Alice in Wonderland_ , the works of Charles Dickens. One day, she was lying on her stomach, eagerly flipping through the blank pages of a scented book, and paused. She was feeling something, something she had never felt before…It was warm and slightly bubbly and smelled like just-baked sugar cookies…It was Happiness. She had felt little bits of it every now and then, but she had never experienced it in all of its entirety…She liked it. She wished that she could always feel it. She paused again. She had never wished for something before. She used to wish that her mother would stop drinking or hitting her, but then her mother called her a "selfish, ungrateful brat" and she had never wished for anything ever again. She wondered if, by wishing for something like constant Happiness, if she was selfish. She decided that she was and stopped wishing for it, instead reveling in the new feeling and deciding to enjoy it to the fullest for as long as it would last.

A middle-class family would frequently visit the facility—they were human and consisted of a man and a woman, slightly middle-aged and with no children. They would visit and seemed to express an unusual interest in the girl. She would ignore this interest until she would be called away and sent over to talk to them, in which case she was always as polite and as good-natured as she could be. The family was absolutely delighted and would talk to the workers running the place, unaware that she was a vampire.

A week had passed. Sebastian was still unusually silent and brooding. Ciel was still agonizing over the case; there had been two more mass killings this month and neither he nor Scotland Yard could get in and investigate.

Madam Red and Grell suddenly burst into the room with a scream,

 _"Sebastian!"_

Both of them looked up.

"Yes?" Sebastian said in a tired, sad voice, a voice that had become the norm with him.

"Sebastian, _you have to get her out of there_!"

"What? Why?"

"Do calm down, Madam Red," Ciel said irritably. "Stop and catch your breath for a moment before you speak."

The Madam did this and once she could speak normally she continued.

"Sebastian, you have to get her out of there immediately."

"But why?"

"Because," she hissed and began rifling through her pockets, "I was visiting a friend of a friend with a friend and all she talked about was how she was going to adopt a sweet little orphan girl for charity."

"That's all the rage these days," Ciel sighed. "Quite sad, really. These fools all adopt those poor children for 'charity' and, when they've gotten bored of them, they turn them into little slaves. Tragic."

"That's right," Madam Red said. "And this particular lady is worst of the worst. I saw the way she treated her servants—she kicked them and yelled at them and slapped their hands and called them 'idiots' and 'worthless'…"

"Disgusting," Ciel agreed.

"But that's not the worst of it," she said and brought out a photograph, handing it to Sebastian. "This is the little girl that they're planning on adopting."

Sebastian stared at it dumbly.

"…But this is _my_ girl," he said.

"Exactly! Do you realize what's going to happen? Unless you do something quickly and get your daughter out of that place, she's going to be adopted by these perfectly foul people and then, the second she does something they don't like, or the very instant she stops becoming endearing and pitiful and just a lower-class nuisance, they're going to treat her like a servant forever."

"But she could get out of that," Sebastian said weakly. "She could escape."

"And if she gets caught? Then she'll be shipped back to them, because _now_ they're her 'legal guardians.' Do you understand, Sebastian? This will be even worse than living with her mother, because at least she knew that she was her mother and there was always the chance of leaving, and plus she had _you_. But if she gets adopted, she'll be with a bunch of cruel strangers, with _no_ chance of leaving, and _you_ won't be her legal guardian anymore. You'll never see her again."

Sebastian was silent, thinking.

"…Maybe they won't be so bad," he said, but they could tell by the tone of his voice that he didn't believe it—rather, he wasn't going to take this sitting down. He was going to fight for his little girl…His voice became as strong as it used to be and when he looked up, his eyes had lost their sadness, which was replaced by fury and a desire to conquer.

"My Lord," he said, turning to Ciel, "please excuse me for a couple of days. I must see to something."

"Certainly," Ciel said. "Take as much time as you need."

"And don't come back without the girl!" Madam Red called behind him, but by that time he was already out the door.


	23. Chapter 23

"Alright, let's try this again:"

Sebastian groaned and placed his head on the table.

"You ready?"

"…No. But go ahead anyway."

"*ahem*'A vampire's sleep schedule is incredibly erratic, due to their insomnia. When should a vampire be told to go to bed? A) at the same time every night; B) never; C) when they appear to be tired; or D) when it's convenient.'"

"Uh…A?"

" _No_. For goodness sakes, this is the _third time_ you've missed that question." The Undertaker glared at Sebastian. "For the last time, the answer is C. It's _logical_ that the answer should be C."

"It's not logical," Sebastian protested. " _Nothing_ about vampires is logical." He took a sip of his drink and made a face. "Ugh." He reached for the sugar bowl and opened it. "Undertaker, this is empty."

"No, duh."

"Where'd the sugar go?"

"You dumped it in the coffee pot."

"Do you have any more sugar?"

"No."

"Where'd it go?"

"You dumped it in the coffee pot."

"Well, what about cream? Do you have any more cream?"

"No."

"Why not? Where did _it_ go?"

"…You dumped it in the coffee pot."

Sebastian frowned at the drink before him. If anyone else had tried it, they wouldn't have recognized it as anything distantly resembling "coffee" in a million years, but he could still taste the remnants of the original drink and he hated it.

"Can't I have tea or something? Or wine? Don't you have some wine?"

"I have light beer, and no, you can't have anything else."

"Ugh. But why not?"

"Because coffee has caffeine and little else and you need to keep awake and alert. You've been studying for a solid week and you still have absolutely nothing to show for it. The test is _tomorrow_. If you fail it…"

"I know, I know, I lose my daughter forever." Sebastian sighed and stared moodily at his coffee.

"That's right," the Undertaker said and took a sip from his drink. He passed the bottle over to Sebastian out of pity and he took a hesitant taste. He made another face and handed the bottle back over.

"I pity your daughter," the Undertaker remarked.

"What? Why?"

"Because you're her father and you can't even handle a light beer. Who's going to teach her how to drink? How's she going to win all the drinking contests?"

"Someone else can teach her how to drink and I refuse to let her participate in drinking contests. My father used to take me to them; they were so degrading."

"Aaand you failed another question," the Undertaker said, looking down at his book.

" _What? Why? HOW?_ What'd I miss?!"

"'Vampires require blood to drink, but to keep this hidden from the humans, they have developed a type of slang to refer to blood and types of blood. For example, human blood is called "hard liquor" while animal blood is referred to as "beer." This slang has massively increased, creating the so-called "vampire drinking culture." Should a vampire be prevented from participating in the culture?'"

"Yes!"

" _No!_ The answer is 'no.'"

"But how is that possible?"

The Undertaker held up his bottle and swished it around for a bit.

"This stuff isn't human beer, you know. It doesn't have any effect on me, but it contains numerous nutritional things for a vampire. The drinking culture is the same. Studies show that vampires who participate in drinking contests are actually healthier than the ones who don't. Look at your father! He's been drinking in contests since he was born, and he's stronger than you. A _vampire_ stronger than a _demon_! You want your daughter to grow up strong and healthy, right?"

Sebastian didn't answer; he glared up at the Undertaker and took another sip of his coffee.

"Now pay attention," the Undertaker leaned in. "The test will consist of three parts: the blood test, the physical test, and the written test. The blood test is the easiest; they'll just take a sample of your blood and test it to make sure that you're not a psycho or an abusive maniac and have the physical and mental capabilities of successfully raising a child. While that's going on, you'll be doing the physical test. What happens there is that they're going to give you a golem that looks like a baby. You're going to have to feed, dress, and otherwise take care of this thing for half-an-hour. The catch is that it's been designed so that it resembles a human baby more than an unholy one—so it's going to struggle when you try to feed it and it needs certain clothes to wear…And it's also designed to start crying whenever you get frustrated or angry with it. It can sense the negative emotions and the slightest thing can set it off. You pass if you go through the half-hour and the thing only cries less than fifty times or something."

Sebastian swallowed hard; he looked a bit sick.

"Now the last part is the written test," the Undertaker continued. "That's when they take you to a room and they give you an actual paper test that has been written especially for you and your child. In your case, that means you'll be taking a test about raising a female vampire cambion."

Sebastian groaned. The words sounded like doom: _female vampire cambion_. That was like triple death, especially as he was a male demon not-cambion. It was like a cat trying to raise a dog—he was essentially raising his exact opposite.

"You'll have an hour for this test. I'm not sure how many questions will be on it; I think it varies. You can technically fail one test if it means that you've passed the other two. Personally, I recommend that you try to pass the golem test instead of the written test."

Sebastian groaned again and put his head down on the table. The Undertaker stood up and began putting all his books away.

"You should go," he said. "Go and prepare some more, ready yourself for the test and all that."

"I don't think that I can do this," Sebastian said weakly.

"Try," the Undertaker said and Sebastian left.

He made a pit stop before he went to Phantomhive Manor: the Satanistic Church, the church of the unholy, London Branch. It was hidden, just like every other business that dabbled in the unholy, but Sebastian had visited numerous times before so had no trouble finding and entering it.

He bowed to the nuns as they passed but didn't stop walking until he reached the María chamber. The statue of María was on the far side of the chamber. People were sitting in the pews, bowing and muttering prayers. He ignored them and walked as close as he could to the statue, where others were kneeling as well. He needed vast amounts of help and wanted to be as close to the sint's ear as possible.

María was one of the major sints of Satanism. She represented all forms of love, was a protector of children, marriage, and parents, and a defender of the weak. Sebastian looked up at her statue. She was dressed in the Satanic nun's habit, her expression peaceful and happy, her stone lips curled up into a gentle smile. Her right hand held the open Gospelle (he couldn't see it, but he knew that it was turned to the page about fidelity and sex) while the left hand was raised, a wedding ring on one of the fingers. The left hand was poised in the sign of "go to hell" but it was the greeting sign of the unholy rather than an insult. It was a warm, welcoming sign and Sebastian bowed to it. At her feet were statues of little children, dancing around her and laughing. He stared at them enviously; he wished that his girl could be like them—happy and smiling and without a care in the world.

He blinked. It was impossible, but for a moment, he thought that he saw his daughter's face in one of the statues. He shook his head and bent down in front of María and began praying in Avelatani, the language of Hell.

 **"Sint María,"** he said, **"you who protect the children and the weak, please hear me and come to my aid. I have a little girl, a cambion daughter, named…Well, never mind that now. She has been alone all her life, save for her cambionic vessel, who is an absolutely disgusting woman, who…But I'm sure that you know all about it, for you are omniscient. Through my own foolishness I lost my little girl, who was taken to child services. She is about to be adopted by humans who, I have been told, are also perfectly horrible. My only hope of getting her back to me is to pass this stupi—I mean, test. Please help me, María. For the sake of my happiness and above all, for the sake of the happiness of my little girl."** He knew that he had to offer something in return for this favor; the unholy sints aren't like other saints. They give and take, just like everyone else; for something to be given, another thing must be given in return. **"If you grant me your favor and guide me during this test, I swear to you and on the soul of my mother and the blood of my father that this time, I will actually make a significant effort to be a better father. I shall read parenting books religiously and I will make sure that nothing bad ever happens to my little girl again. I will never leave her, just as I had left her before. She shall truly be my daughter; I will never push her away again. When she's sad I shall dry her tears and when she's happy I shall partake of her joy and…"** He broke off. He had accidently started reciting unholy marriage vows and he thought that that was kind of creepy. **"What I mean to say is, María, if you help me, I shall become the best father that I could possibly be. Please help me, María. Please, please,** ** _please_** **help me."**

There was a small breeze of fresh air that smelled like flowers. He looked up, but instead of the church, he saw a beautiful woman in a nun's habit, a woman who looked just like the statue. They were in a meadow and little children were running around her, giving her flowers and showing her little curiosities that they had found and the woman kept on smiling at them, smoothing their hair and happily accepting their gifts and showing as much enthusiasm as they did in the glorious day. She looked up and met eyes with Sebastian. She smiled at him and gently touched the head of another little girl, a girl who was clutching the woman's dress, a girl with long black hair in ponytails and blue eyes…

Sebastian gasped. It was his own daughter.

The woman smiled down at his surprise and whispered something into his girl's ear. She listened, nodded, and tentatively approached the other playing children. They immediately welcomed her and within seconds she was just like them, running about and shouting for joy with wildflowers in her hair.

The woman watched the scene for a moment, smiling. Then she turned back to Sebastian.

 ** _"When you're taking the test,"_** she said in a dreamlike, musical voice, **_"remember this. Think of her smiling face and answer confidently. Forget your 'logic'; it doesn't apply to little children, especially vampires, especially female vampire children. Think of her beautiful smile and how one day, she shall smile at you like that. Think of her and you shall pass."_**

Then his girl ran up to him and hugged him. She looked up at him with a huge, beautiful smile and Sebastian so desperately wanted to hug her back but then he blinked and the vision had disappeared. He was again in the church, kneeling in front of María.

He stood up, dusted himself off, and bowed to the statue, muttering thank-yous. He turned and strode out of the church, thinking about what he had seen. Already the vision was fading from his mind; he could only remember the sint's words and the girl's smile.

It was late when he arrived back at the manor. Everyone was already asleep. He quickly checked in on the rooms, making sure that all was well. He paused at the young Master's room and did a thorough check; after all, making sure that he was safe was part of the contract; if something happened to him, then he would be out a soul.

The young Master had been reading before bed. Sebastian picked the book up and carried it the library, absentmindedly flipping through it. It was a collection of the works of Edgar Allan Poe—one of the young Master's favorites. He knew all of the stories: _Berenice, the Black Cat, Eleonora_ …Hello, what was this?

He flipped back one or two pages and found the story that had caught his eye: "Eleonora." What a name. It piqued his attention; he had arrived at the library and sat down on one of the armchairs to read.

It was a beautiful story, perhaps one of his favorites. It had everything in it: love, innocence, beauty, vows, mercy, forgiveness…But above all else it had that name, "Eleonora." The spelling was a bit off; he wasn't precisely sure how to pronounce it, but it was a lovely name nonetheless. Some lines distinctly reminded him of his daughter:

 _"From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora…"_

A clock tolled somewhere in the distance and he was brought out of his daydreams. It was late and he had a big day tomorrow. He carefully and regretfully placed the book back and went to his room. He lay down on the bed and tried not to worry about the test. He had studied (and had failed), he had prayed (and forgotten almost everything about it), he had read a nice story (Eleonora, Eleonora, Eleonora), he had done everything that he could. What happened tomorrow would happen tomorrow.

He sighed and rolled onto his side, his eyes closing. He mentally reconjured that image of his daughter, smiling up at him, and he felt himself drifting off, remembering that odd story and the strange spelling of the name…

 _Eleonora._

 _Eleonora._

 _Eleanora._


	24. Chapter 24

There was a thrill in the air; the girl could smell it even before she became fully conscious. All the children were running around, giggling and laughing and placing bets.

"Come on, Lady!" one of her acquaintances said upon noticing her. "Come on! Hurry or you'll miss the show!"

Not at all sure about what was going on, the girl followed the other children until they reached the grand hall. No one was really sure what the grand hall was for—in fact, it wasn't much of a hall at all, just one big room filled with a bunch of cubicles. There was a balcony above the grand hall, and this was where all the children gathered to look down into the proceedings.

"What's going on?" the girl asked one of the children near her. The boy giggled and winked at her.

"Just watch; this is going to be _hilarious_. Today is Testing Day! Once a year, these poor saps come in here, trying to regain their lost children. Most of them fail, and the kids refuse to go back and live with the ones that _do_ succeed! Just watch; these tests are _so_ difficult; it's nearly impossible to beat them!"

The girl leaned over the balcony with the others, watching the proceedings with interest. Lots of people entered the hall, some smelling of sadness, some of anger, some of humiliation, but most of desperation and longing and love. Quite a lot of love. She smelled whole families entering—the idea being that at least _one_ of them could win and earn the chance to convince their child to return to their homes.

The boy next to her whistled.

"Lookit," he whispered. "Fresh meat."

The girl looked at the newcomers entering. They smelled mostly of fear and anticipation and nervousness. One of the scents was familiar…She could barely place it…

A man came into view and she gasped.

The black man from Phantomhive had come to take the test.

Sebastian had been nervous—exceedingly nervous. He was frantically flipping through the books that the Undertaker had lent him—books about passing the test. Everything seemed so familiar when he was reading about it, but the moment he put the book down, he couldn't remember anything at all. He was the closest he had ever gotten to a nervous wreck when they arrived at the child service building.

He had to fill out a form at the front desk before the test could begin. The lady just asked him rudimentary questions:

"Name?"

"Sebastian Michaelis."

"Age?"

He told her.

"The child that you're testing for?"

He was about to say "Lady" but paused. After all, "Lady" was a nickname and not even a nickname that he had chosen. Naming his girl "Lady" would be like someone naming him "Butler", or "Hey You." It didn't sound nice at all. But there was no other name in his mind…

"Sir? The child's name?"

That story from last night…What was that name that he had liked so much?

"Sir?"

"Eleonora," he said firmly. "The girl's name is Eleonora Michaelis."

"Eleanora?" the lady said, thinking that it was spelled the way that it's normally spelled. "Eleanora Michaelis?"

"Yes, Eleonora," Sebastian said, not knowing that she had misspelled it, because both spellings sound the same.

"Eleanora," the woman said, writing it down. "We'll take the blood test now, sir."

A nurse was called in and she quickly extracted some of his blood. He was then taken to a huge room, filled with cubicles, where he would take the golem test. He looked around and tried to remain calm. He could do this. He could do this! He was one hell of a butler; it was _elementary_ that he could do this…

He felt someone watching him and he looked up. His eyes met with his little girl's. She was leaning over the balcony with a bunch of other children, watching the people streaming in. He wanted to shout at her and tell her not to lean over the railing too much; she might fall and hurt herself; but she was probably too far away to hear him anyway.

She looked better, healthier. Less thin. Her eyes sparkled more. She wasn't shouting and jumping up and down like the other kids, but she still seemed interested in the proceedings. He thought that that might be good; she had never really seemed "interested" in anything before. He also thought that she might have grown an inch or two, but it was too hard to tell from the point where he was standing.

He wanted to wave at her or smile or something but then someone coughed next to him and nervousness returned—no, not nervousness: _panic_.

How stupid could he be? He couldn't do this! He couldn't pass this test, and even if he did somehow manage to pass, what on earth would convince the girl to return to him? She was smart; she didn't need him; she could take care of herself…He felt a bit faint and wondered if he was going to vomit.

He was led to a cubicle, which contained a table, a chair, a sink, a cradle, and some kind of changing station. One of the employees gave him a golem. This seemed familiar; what did the Undertaker tell him?

 _"…you'll be doing the physical test. What happens there is that they're going to give you a golem that looks like a baby. You're going to have to feed, dress, and otherwise take care of this thing for half-an-hour. The catch is that it's been designed so that it resembles a human baby more than an unholy one—so it's going to struggle when you try to feed it and it needs certain clothes to wear…And it's also designed to start crying whenever you get frustrated or angry with it. It can sense the negative emotions and the slightest thing can set it off. You pass if you go through the half-hour and the thing only cries less than fifty times or something."_

The golem was crudely made out of clay. It wasn't as detailed as some golems are; it vaguely resembled a baby. Its back was covered in spells and incantations and commands, just like all golems are. He held it stiffly and awkwardly away from his body and looked at the child service person.

"The test will begin as soon as this door closes," he told him. "For the next half-hour, you will be responsible for this golem. You must try to limit its crying as much as possible."

The door closed. Sebastian looked around the little room. It didn't seem so hard. Taking care of a human baby should just be like taking care of the young Master, right? Nothing he couldn't handle.

He stared down at the golem, which was just beginning to squirm like a baby.

 _"Goodness, but it's an ugly little thing, isn't it?"_ he thought.

And the golem started to cry.

Half an hour passed in boredom and anticipation. The children began playing board games to pass the time while the test was going on. The girl learned chess and found it remarkably easy—she could taste her opponent's next move and make her own moves accordingly. She tried playing chess with a vampire and that was less fun—they both knew what moves the other would make, so it was taking forever and both of them weren't winning.

The half-hour eventually passed and everyone crowded around the balconies again, laughing and shushing and each clamoring to get a better view of the thing. The employees of child services walked around, opening cubicles and telling the frustrated and exhausted people inside how many times their golem cried. The limit was fifty.

"Forty-five."

"Sixty-seven."

"Thirty-eight."

"Seventeen."

The children gasped and whispered to each other about the person who had made the golem cry only seventeen times. The man inside looked remarkably smug and smirked, quietly flexing his muscles.

"Eighty-nine."

"Forty-two."

"One."

A dead silence fell on the whole room. The children just looked at each other. _One? How could there be someone whose golem only cried once? That's impossible_! The man who had gotten seventeen looked murderous.

The employees looked at each other and opened the door.

And there was Sebastian, sitting on the floor with the golem in front of him.

He looked as if he was meditating. His legs were crossed in the lotus position, his hands rested on his knees in the "go to hell" sign, only instead of it being pointed to other people, the way it's normally pointed, it was pointed at himself. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open; he seemed to be asleep.

And the golem in front of him was absolutely silent.

The silence remained for a time and then everything snapped back into chaos.

"Boo!" the kids shouted. "Cheater! Cheater! Fail him! Fail him!"

"What's going on?" the girl asked the boy next to her, who was also shouting at Sebastian.

"He cheated," the boy growled. "He used the mentisrigdum."

"The mentis what?"

"The mentisrigdum. It's a mental technique that wipes the mind clean; it's kind of like a trance and kind of like meditation. The golem cries if it senses negative feelings or thoughts about it—if there's no mind to think negative thoughts, there's nothing to sense. He cheated. Cheater!" he shouted and threw a chess piece at Sebastian, who at this time awoke from the trance and looked around in worry. Had he done something wrong? But the golem-thing hadn't cried save for at the beginning…

Truth be known, he had panicked when he heard the golem cry. He had panicked and almost dropped the thing but then he had regained his composure but the golem kept crying and all he could remember was the Undertaker's words…

"… _it's also designed to start crying whenever you get frustrated or angry with it. It can sense the negative emotions and the slightest thing can set it off…"_

He realized that he needed to banish negativity and the first thing that came to mind was the mentisrigdum. So he had carefully set the screaming golem down on the floor and sat in front of it and began to meditate, just as his father had taught him. Within minutes the golem had stopped crying, and a few minutes after that, his mind was gone.

The employees were talking quietly, discussing something. One of them stepped forward and cleared his throat.

"Based on the lack of actual attention given to the golem, you have failed this test."

The children cheered and whistled. The man who had gotten seventeen smirked. Sebastian looked absolutely horrified; he had to lean against the door for support.

"F-Failed? But why? The test was not to make the golem cry. And I didn't make the golem cry!"

"The point of the test is to see how well you are at taking care of a child," the employee said sternly. "And going into the mentisrigdum is _not_ the proper way to take care of a child. Suppose the child is injured and needs your attention and you're just _meditating_?"

Sebastian stared down at the floor.

"It's alright," the employee said soothingly. "If you pass the last test, you still have a chance."

Sebastian scoffed. "Passing the last test," how hilarious. He'd be surprised if he actually got one question _right_ on the test.

The girl watched him go. She wasn't sure how she was feeling about everything—on the one hand, she hated him and she didn't want to go back and live with him. On the other hand, he wouldn't have gone and taken these tests if he didn't care. She had seen his reaction when they told him that he had failed—he even had had to lean against something. She thought about her mother. Would her mother have taken tests for the chance to spring her out of child services? She doubted it; she couldn't see her mother doing such a thing.

The written test was passed out, as the Undertaker said, according to the child that the parent was trying to regain. Sebastian stared down at his test; it was about fifty pages and all about raising a female vampire cambion.

"You have one hour," someone said. "And you may begin."

He looked at the first question:

 **When should a vampire be told to go to bed?**

 **A) At the same time every night**

 **B) Never**

 **C) When they appear to be tired**

 **D) When it's convenient**

Sebastian frowned; the question was familiar; he had seen it before…What was the answer? Of course, it was A!

He paused. But the Undertaker hadn't said that it was A. On the contrary, he had gotten angry when he said that it was A. So what was it? B? That sounded right…

But wait a minute. It was said that second-guessing an answer increased the chances of getting it wrong. Which meant that it must be A. But A didn't sound right. So what was the answer?!

He groaned and closed his eyes. This was it. He'd fail the test. His daughter would spend her life slaving for a bunch of middle-class morons. He would never see her again; she would always remember him as that jerk who didn't love her. He buried his face in his hands and thought about his girl…her eyes, her teeth, her coffee, her smile…

Her smile…

 ** _"Think of her beautiful smile and how one day, she shall smile at you like that. Think of her and you shall pass."_**

He raised his pencil…

 ** _"Think of her beautiful smile…"_**

He poised it over the answers…

 ** _"One day, she shall smile at you…"_**

He circled one of the answers…

 ** _"Think of her…"_**

He opened his eyes…

 ** _"…and you shall pass."_**

He frowned down at the test. He had circled C. Surely that wasn't correct?

 ** _"…and you shall pass."_**

He sighed and thought of the girl's smile and went on to the next question. He wasn't so sure what he was doing, but it was better to put down an answer than no answer at all, right?

"Eleanora?"

The girl didn't look up from her book. The name that the employee was calling out was unfamiliar to her.

"Eleanora?"

She turned a page.

"Eleanora Michaelis?"

She paused and looked up. Michaelis? Wasn't that the black man's name? But who was Eleanora?

The employee was looking around and noticed her looking confused.

"Oh, _there_ you are. Come along. We have some news for you."

The girl, still rather confused, stood up and trotted after the woman. She took her to a room, where that middle-class family was—the couple that wanted to adopt her. They stood up and smiled at her and the woman held her arms out invitingly. The girl hesitated; the woman didn't smell right. She had noticed it before and the scent didn't get any better. But there was another scent too: a familiar scent; it was warm and cozy and fraught with anticipation and nervousness; she looked around and she saw the black man sitting in the corner, staring at the floor.

"Your father passed the test," the employee said gently. "He passed the blood test and the written test; he failed the golem test, but he needed to pass two of them for the chance that you would agree to go back with him. It's up to you now. You can either stay here, or go with this couple, or go with your father. There's no pressure, take your time." She stood back a little ways, leaving the girl alone with her thoughts.

"Preposterous!" the middle-class lady said loudly. "Children shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions. Just give her to us and let's get on with our day."

The butler didn't say anything. He shuffled his feet a bit and stuck his little finger in his mouth.

The girl thought for a moment and then turned to the employee. She whispered something into her ear and the woman looked surprised.

"Really? Are you sure?"

The girl nodded. The woman smiled.

"Alright. Just between you and me…" she leaned in and whispered into the girl's ear, _"good choice."_

The girl nodded and stepped aside. The employee walked over to the expectant middle-class couple and whispered something to them. Sebastian sighed and stood up. Well, that was it. He had tried and he had failed. He had been so happy when he learned that he had passed that written test…But of course he knew that, in the end, the decision would be up to the girl. She had made her choice and he would respect it. He turned, ready to leave, but the employee came up to him with a smile.

"Sir, she's made her decision."

He nodded.

"I know."

His voice was listless and dull.

"She hopes that you'll understand…"

"I do."

"She hopes that you won't be too upset with her…"

"I'm not."

"But she wants to go and stay with you again."

Sebastian froze and looked at the woman. She nodded and smiled and gestured to the girl. She hesitantly walked forward and curtseyed.

"She wants to live with you again, if that's alright."

"Al…right?" Sebastian stammered. "Th-That's more than alright! You really mean it? You really want to come with me?"

The girl nodded. Sebastian sighed with more relief than he knew that he had and noticed with satisfaction that security was escorting the screaming and disappointed and very angry middle-class woman and her husband outside.

"Here's her file," the woman said, handing over some papers over to Sebastian.

He nodded.

"Thank y—"

He stared down at the file in surprise. They had misspelled the name; it was supposed to be "Eleonora Michaelis" and instead it was "Eleanora Michaelis."

"Something wrong?" the lady asked.

"N-no, nothing's wrong." He smiled down at the girl—his daughter. "It's just perfect."

And it really was, he thought as he led the girl down to the cab. "Eleanora" was a nice spelling of the name. It sounded the same and looked nicer. Neater. The "o" in "Eleonora" really made everything so awkward. "Eleanora" looked much more elegant. Besides, if it was "Eleonora," many more people would probably make the same mistake and misspell it as "Eleanora." It was better this way.

They got into the cab and drove off. The girl waved at the building as they moved away from it; lots of little children and employees had followed them out the door and were waving and shouting goodbye at her.

When the building was properly out of sight, she sat back in her seat and sighed. Sebastian thought that he should say something. Tell her that, if she had really wanted, she could have stayed at child services. Ask her why she chose him over that couple. But she looked at him and blinked and he realized that he just didn't care. It didn't matter anymore. She had chosen him, and that was enough. That was more than enough.

"Sir?"

"Hm?"

"That woman called me something."

"Oh? What?"

"She called me 'Eleanora.'" The girl hesitated. "Is that…Is that my name, sir? Am I 'Eleanora?'"

Sebastian laughed and couldn't resist pulling her closer, squeezing her, holding her as tight as he could without hurting her.

"Yes, it's your name," he whispered. "You're Eleanora—my dear, sweet Eleanora."

"Eleanora," the girl repeated in wonder and Sebastian hugged her tighter while she thought. It wasn't a bad name. It wasn't a bad name at all. In any case, she thought that she could do worse than be called "Eleanora." _"Yes"_ , she decided as the cab drove on towards Phantomhive, _"it's not a bad thing at all to be an Eleanora."_

The next morning, when she was back at Phantomhive and everyone was still asleep (there had been a party to celebrate her return and everyone was still a bit tired from it), she woke up early as usual and went downstairs to make herself some coffee. She was drinking it at the table in the kitchen, thinking that all really was right with the world and then the butler came in. He just looked at her for a while.

"Eleanora," he said finally. "Are you drinking coffee?"

"Y-Yes," she said warily, prepared to fight to the death for her true love. Sebastian sighed and began making breakfast.

"Try not to drink too much," he told her and didn't say anything else about it. The girl—Eleanora—blinked at him and hurriedly finished her pot of coffee in case he changed his mind. He didn't. He smiled at her when she was done and smoothed her hair back.

Things became better at Phantomhive. Sebastian stopped nagging her about the coffee and she restricted her cursing in return. He still told her to do things: don't burp, don't track mud in the house, don't ask the Earl if he's a bloody idiot because he can't put on his own clothes, but now she realized that all the orders were for her own good—and for the good of everyone around her.

At night, she curled up in her bed and would think about her name, the name that she had never had, the name that she would carry for the rest of her life:

 _Eleanora_.


	25. Chapter 25

There was a loud, frustrated scream in the early hours of the morning.

Eleanora had somehow managed to fall asleep at the kitchen table and was immediately woken up by the scream. Her first reaction was fury, because she had been woken up so unceremoniously and without good cause; her second reaction was sadness, because she had been woken up so unceremoniously and without good cause; her third reaction was curiosity, because she had been woken up so unceremoniously and without good cause. Sebastian had always made a point to never bother her when she was asleep or on the verge of falling asleep, so her being awake without her own choosing was rather new.

She stood up and trotted upstairs to the young Master's study, where he was still screaming with rage every now and then.

"What's going on?" she asked, trying to keep her still-sleepy voice as bright and as clear as possible.

"Nothing," Sebastian said hurriedly. "Nothing's going on. Were you sleeping? Did we wake you? It's nothing; go back to sleep."

"There's been another murder," Ciel said irritably, tossing aside a newspaper. "Closer this time. And, once again, _no one can get in._ "

"I'm sure that the Yard will use their power to force themselves into the building," Sebastian said. "We should wait for a time."

"But I _have_ waited!" Ciel shouted. "I've waited and I've waited and I've _waited_ but absolutely nothing has come of it! Are we supposed to _wait_ until _everyone_ in England is _dead_?!"

"But my Lord," Sebastian said patiently, "what else are we supposed to do? We can't get in; nobody's going out; are we supposed to murder all the guards surrounding the building and break in?"

Eleanora gasped and clutched his pant leg.

"Murder?! You're not going to murder anyone, are you? I hate murderers! Don't kill anyone! Please?"

Sebastian looked down at her and smiled. He kneeled before her and smoothed her hair back.

"I'm not going to kill anyone," he assured her. "It was a little jest. Don't worry about anything." He shared a look with the young Master. Any killings that would occur would have to be kept away from her.

"Why don't _I_ break in?" Eleanora said. "I can break in and break out and no one would have to die and then I'll tell you all what's happening!"

"Nonsense! I won't allow it." Sebastian said, again looking at the young Master for support. But Ciel was looking at Eleanora very seriously…

"You know, she really could do it," he said finally.

" _WHAT?!_ "

"She really could do it," he repeated, getting excited. "She's small enough; she could break in and wander around unnoticed…"

"…I'm not small," Eleanora said indignantly. "I've grown taller."

Sebastian smiled down at her again and patted her head. It was true; good food and no abuse had turned the thin two-foot girl into a less-thin three-foot girl. He was proud of her height and frequently told her that soon she'll be taller than the young Master, a day she awaited eagerly. But just because she was healthier didn't mean that she could run around and investigate murder scenes and he told her so.

"But I can help!" she protested. "I can help! I help around the manor, don't I? I can help here too!"

"That's right; she can," Ciel said. "She's a smart, clever little thing; she'll remember everything of importance and report back to us easily. Why shouldn't she help us?"

"Because she's just a little girl," Sebastian said firmly, pulling her into his arms. "She's just a sweet little girl and she shouldn't have to see such horrible things."

"But I've seen gruesome deaths before," she said and he shuddered.

"Nevertheless, I forbid you from assisting us," he said, glaring at the young Master. "Absolutely forbidden."

Ciel groaned and nodded. He knew that a scorned demon was an angry demon, and an angry demon was something that nobody wanted to have around.

Eleanora sulkily walked away with the orders to bring the young Master more tea. But why _shouldn't_ she help? Wasn't she good at helping? She didn't want to just sit around at Phantomhive when something exciting was going on— _especially_ if people were dying. She could help prevent the deaths of people! Wasn't that a noble goal that should be supported?

Sebastian's father had been a doting, petting man who hated to see his child unhappy and would've done anything to keep everyone smiling. Sebastian himself had inherited this way of parenting and, consequently, was very sad to see Eleanora return with the tea, looking dejected.

"Listen," he said. "Tonight, the young Master and I are going to the mansion where the crime had been committed to see if we could get in somehow. If you really want to, you can come."

Eleanora's head bobbed up immediately.

"Really?"

He nodded. Her face broke out into an excited smile. If she had been any less dignified she would have said something along the lines of "yay!" but as it was, she merely hugged his legs and ran off to get ready. Sebastian smiled after her, feeling that now his little girl was happy, all was right with the world. Ciel rolled his eyes and flipped through the newspaper again.

"Don't spoil her," he warned.

"'Spoil her?' Nonsense; that girl is unspoilable."

"But don't you think it could be dangerous?"

"She'll have me," Sebastian said stubbornly. "I won't allow anything bad to happen to my little darling."

Ciel shrugged and went back to the newspaper. Meanwhile, Eleanora pulled on her brand-new boots and admired them in the mirror.

 _"I can help,"_ she thought. _"I can still help!"_

And already a plan was forming in her mind on how she would accomplish this.


	26. Chapter 26

Sebastian and Ciel had spent two hours arguing negotiating with the policemen guarding the house where the murder had happened. They tried everything: bribery, flattery, threats…And when those didn't work, they tried it all again. Eleanora was starting to get rather bored with it all and began to wander away from them, looking for something else to do.

She had had a plan for sneaking into the mansion and investigating on her own, but that plan was quickly discarded. There didn't seem to be a way to sneak in—the police had formed a huge ring around the house and no one could get in without being spotted.

She sighed and irritably kicked the ground. Her boot shuffled a bit and slightly slid off of her foot. Another kick would send it flying.

She looked around; she had wandered quite a distance away from Sebastian. He would undoubtedly start looking for her in a few minutes, and then they would have to go home. She sighed again and slid her foot around in her boot. She didn't _want_ to go back. She wanted to investigate! She was sure that she could, if she could only get in…

She kicked her foot again, and as she predicted, the boot went flying, sailing past the policemen's heads and landing on the house's lawn.

"My _shoe_!"

She ran as fast as she could to get it, ducking underneath the policemen's arms, and suddenly stopped, realizing that she technically wasn't allowed there.

"Hey! Little girl, get back here!" one of the men shouted.

"Oh, let her get her shoe; it's not as if she can do any damage," another man said. Eleanora looked around. Some of the policemen were watching her warily, but most of them had already lost interest and were looking out for a more dangerous intruder. She blushed at her rashness and hopped over to her lost boot. She pulled it onto her foot and felt extraordinarily guilty. She was such a little _brat_. Someone paid good money for that boot, and she just kicked it away from her! She vowed never to do such a thing again and began to go back to the barrier, head down.

She stopped and stomped her foot. The ground sounded different here—hollow. She looked around; the policemen that had been watching her were now talking amongst themselves. No one was watching her.

She knelt down and ran her fingers through the dirt, sniffing carefully, sorting out all the scents in her mind:

 _Worm…Soil…Death…Wood…Wood…Life…Soil…Wood…Wood…Edge._

There. She found the edge of the wooden thing and pulled it up, trying to remain as quiet as possible.

It was a forgotten trapdoor, one that most probably led to the basement of the house. Her heart beat faster with excitement; she glanced around again and slunk into the trapdoor, closing it softly. Then she turned around in the darkness, breathing in the cold, musty air of a forgotten tunnel and smirked.

She was _inside the house_.

"Eleanora?"

Ciel was still negotiating with the policemen. Sebastian was taking a break and had looked up and realized that his little girl was missing.

"Eleanora?"

He wandered around the perimeter, ignoring the policemen, searching for his daughter.

"Eleanora? Where are you? Lady? Lady?"

He circled around the house and came back to where the young Master was, who at this time was ready to go home.

"My Lord, I can't find Eleanora. Have you seen her?"

"What? No. I haven't seen her in…two hours?"

They looked at each other. Sebastian felt a surge of panic.

"Eleanora?"

He ran around the house again, this time with Ciel following.

"Eleanora? Baby? Sweetheart? Eleanora!"

They came full-circle again. Sebastian was now seriously panicking. Ciel ran around and asked every other policeman if they had seen a little girl with black hair in twin ponytails, dressed like a little mini-maid.

Most of them said that they hadn't seen her. Sebastian started hyperventilating.

They moved on.

"Excuse me," Ciel said to the next policeman, "but have you seen a girl, about three feet; black hair in ponytails; dressed in black?"

"Cute boots?" Sebastian hiccupped.

The policeman shared a look with the man standing next to him.

"…Yes," he said hesitantly. "We've seen her. She kicked her boot out into the lawn and she ran in to get it…"

"You _mean_ you _let_ her _pass_?" Sebastian shrieked.

Ciel thought that this was great news, but Sebastian looked as if he was going to commit a murder. That or die himself.

"Well, yes; we figured that she wouldn't cause any trouble…Did anyone actually see her leave?"

The policemen shook their heads and stared at each other in confusion. Sebastian tore through the line and stood on the lawn, shouting for Eleanora.

"Wait!" Ciel said, kneeling on the ground. He traced a finger on a wooden edge—the edge of a trapdoor. "I think I know where she went."

"You mean that she's _inside_ the _house_?!" Sebastian was having difficulty breathing.

"Oh, she's not allowed to be in there!" the policeman said, looking at the others. "We have to get her out of there! She could be tampering with evidence!"

"' _Tampering_ with _evidence_?!' My little girl is alone in a house that might have a _murderer_ inside and you're worried about her _tampering_ with _evidence_?!" And now the butler was in full-scale panic. "She could be _hurt_! She could be _scared_! She could be _dead_! There could be an _ax-wielding_ _maniac_ inside and they're worried about her _tampering_ with _evidence?_!"

"Sebastian, calm down," Ciel said, who thought that his normally composed butler panicking was really weird.

Sebastian was forced to calm down; to not calm down would have been disobeying an order, which he was unable to do. But nevertheless, if looks could kill, everything alive within a ten-mile radius of that place would have been dead immediately. Sebastian did _not_ look happy.

Meanwhile, Eleanora was having a great time. She didn't know that Sebastian was having several heart attacks on her account, and she never gave a thought to it, because she thought that he would come up with some sort of rational explanation and just wait for her to come out.

She was actually enjoying herself. The basement was nice and dark and cool and perfectly silent—wonderful conditions for a vampire. She realized that she was a girl on a mission and couldn't dawdle around in this delightful place, but just because she couldn't linger didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy it.

But as she exited the basement and began walking upstairs, she realized that there was something seriously wrong. The air became warmer and more oppressive. Everything smelled like Death.

There was nobody around. She called out once or twice but stopped after that. This air wasn't clean. It filled her lungs; it felt like she was walking around stuffed with cotton gauze.

But there really _should_ have been someone around. The Earl had said that there would be police and undertakers to investigate the causes of death and search for clues and everything. Surely someone would eventually have come along and seen her, ask her what she was doing there and how she had gotten in. But there was no one.

The air was really, truly horrible. It was starting to smell bad, like sickness. She decided to open a window. She might have been tampering with evidence, but it was only one window, and besides, she was suffering.

She tried to open the nearest window. It was glued shut.

She tried all the windows in the hall. All of them had been sealed shut.

She was beginning to get a little frightened now.

She wandered around the house, peeking into empty rooms, occasionally trying to open a window. None of them would open; they had all been glued down.

Then she entered the ballroom.

The room—the largest room in the house—was lined with rolling beds covered in white sheets to hide the corpses of the original victims. But that's not what made her scream.

What made her scream was that everyone else—the policemen, the undertakers, the investigators—everyone else was dead too.

She cautiously approached one of them, the closest one to the door, and gently nudged it with her foot. Their lips were blue and she realized that they had died of suffocation.

She looked around. They had all died of suffocation.

The air seemed to get very, _very_ oppressive.

 _They had all died of suffocation_.

She ran.

She ran until she reached the front door and started pounding on it.

"Let me out!" she screamed. "For the love of God, _let me out_!"

She tried to cough but she couldn't. Running had made her pant, and panting had wasted her air, and she was beginning to feel lightheaded…

 _"For !'s sake, let me out this instant_!"

She had to break a window; she had to get out of here; she slowly walked away, trying not to panic, trying to save her air…

The front door smashed and air—clean, wonderful air—whooshed into the house. She inhaled greedily and tried not to faint.

"Ele—"

Sebastian paused at the door, bringing his arm up to his nose. The house smelled horrible. It smelled like…

"Gas," Eleanora panted as she crawled towards him. "Gas. The whole place has been gassed…Everyone…is dead…" She swooned and Sebastian picked her up, running away with her far away from the house. The policemen streamed in, groaning upon scenting the gas.

Sebastian rested Eleanora against a tree. Ciel began fanning her with his handkerchief and she started to revive.

"Thank you, I'm fine," she whispered. "I'm fine. But they're all…dead…The windows are all sealed; the doors are all locked…"

Sebastian and Ciel looked back towards the house. They could hear glass shattering; the police were throwing furniture into the windows to break them open.

"…You're grounded," Sebastian finally said.

Then he kissed her for the very first time.


	27. Chapter 27

_Unfair_.

The word thrummed in Agatha Brown's mind— _unfair, unfair, unfair_. And after all that she had suffered through! It wasn't fair. She didn't deserve this. She had done absolutely nothing wrong. She had been a good, pious woman throughout her life, and now _this_. What had she done? What could she have possibly done to deserve this?

 _She_ was the one to be pitied. _She_ was the one to be cared for and protected and loved. Her life had been one giant train wreck—no one had ever loved her, no one had ever cared for her—and now _this_. It just wasn't _fair_!

First, that damned demon had entered her life, with his cool smile and gentlemanly manners and irresistible seduction methods…And then he had gotten her pregnant with his disgusting demon bitch-child, and _then_ he refused to take responsibility for his actions!

So _first_ he had gotten her pregnant, and _then_ he had refused to take back his goddamned bitch-whore, and _then_ he had split and left her all alone and unprotected, with only his goddamned demon bitch-whore for company!

 _She_ was the victim here! _She_ was the one who had suffered!

She had suffered for _centuries_. Forced to drag around that goddamned bitch, forced to look after her, forced to cope with her goddamned tears and cries of pain… _Anyone_ would have turned to drink! _Anyone_ would have preferred a life of drunkenness over taking care of some GODDAMNED DEMON'S _BITCH!_

And then she had finally— _finally_ —had gotten rid of the little whore. That was the best moment of her life. She had skipped away and had one last drink to celebrate, and then she swore off the liquor. The little whore being gone for good meant the start of a brand-new life! A life filled with handsome young men and _no_ demon's spawn to take care of, with only tears and begs for mercy as a reward!

She had woken up bright and early the day she had gotten rid of the bitch. She had cleaned herself as best as she could and went out in search of a job. She found one fairly quickly—she would be working as a maid for a middle-class home. Humble, but it paid the bills, and best of all, it was far away from that _little_ _ **bitch**_.

She had even started a small fling with one of the footmen of the house, and he was enchanted by her. There had even been some talk of marriage and moving out into the country— _finally_. This would be the life that she had always wanted, the life that she _deserved_ after _centuries_ of hardship! A man that loved her and a nice life filled with pleasant people and if they ever had children, they would be beautiful and polite and beautiful and kind and not at all like that demon's bitch.

But one day the footman had looked at her with confusion and he had asked,

"…Aren't you older than you were last week?"

Agatha had laughed it off, but he still kept on giving her looks. Their relationship faded away. Her employers kept looking at her strangely. A month later, she was fired.

She got a room in some dump and just stared at her face in the cracked mirror. It was impossible—it couldn't be happening—not to _her_ —she had suffered so much—but it was true.

Just in one month, she had aged ten years. She was now a woman of thirty.

Of _course_ it was the demon bitch's fault. _Everything_ was the demon bitch's fault. Hadn't she suffered enough? What had she done to deserve this?

She put it off for about half of a month, but by the end of that period, she couldn't deny it any longer: she was aging, and aging _fast_.

Sometime during that half-month, she had started drinking again. Eventually she couldn't handle it anymore and staggered her way back to that mansion—the mansion where the demon and his little bitch were.

The mansion had a gate around it, but she was able to scoot through the bars and she darted into the nearby woods surrounding the mansion and began sneaking around, searching for that demon and that—little— _bitch_.

There was laughter. She dove into the bushes, listened, and then cautiously crept out, listening and watching.

There was that weird eyepatch kid and the woman dressed all in red. They were sitting at a small table outside, having tea. There was some naked man at the kid's feet, who whined like a dog until the kid would give him a bit of cake or something. The kid was reading the newspaper and laughing, talking to the red lady and the damned demon.

The damned demon was standing with his back to Agatha, pouring the tea and smiling at the news that the kid was reading out loud. Every now and then he would look up and around and then go back to the tea. Once he straightened up, looked around, and worriedly called out,

"Eleanora!"

 _"Eleanora?"_ Agatha thought, _"who the hell is Eleanora? Does he have another demon bitch?"_

But no—a few seconds later, the same demon bitch that _she_ had been forced to take care of for _centuries_ ran out of the woods and towards the demon. She was dressed in a little maid's outfit and seemed to have grown a bit taller. Her eyes sparkled and she was smiling. Agatha hated that smile. She just wanted to slap it off her face.

The demon knelt down next to his bitch and stroked her hair, saying something to her. He fixed the bows on her ponytails and kissed her forehead. She curtseyed, first to the demon, then to the people at the table, and then she ran off. The naked man whined and wanted to run off with her too, but the demon glared at him and the man slunk back to the eyepatch kid's side, like a scolded puppy.

Now was her chance. The demon was busy and the whore was alone. She crept away.

Eleanora was singing softly to herself. It was a lovely day. She was feeling much better—she had fully recovered after the manor incident. The Earl's newspaper was saying that Scotland Yard was breaking into all of the affected mansions and the cause of death was always the same: gas. But the manors were all being aired out and there were real, live people working on the case. The young Master doubted that there would be another incident; the Yard was sure to find some evidence eventually, and that would be the end of that.

She hummed and reached down to touch a wildflower. Flowers smelt so strangely, and they felt so nice to the touch. She straightened up and froze.

There was some old hag in front of her, glaring at her with more hatred than she knew had ever existed. The woman was pushing forty, but alcohol had made her seem much older. She spat and Eleanora shuddered. There was something vaguely familiar about the woman, but she just couldn't put her finger on it…

" _You_ ," the woman hissed, staggering forward. _"Whore_."

And Eleanora recognized her.

"M-Mother?" she whispered and Agatha grabbed her by the ponytail and bashed her head against a nearby tree.

There was a flash of pain in Eleanora's head; her nose started bleeding. She hadn't had a headache since she had returned to Phantomhive…This was very bad.

" _Don't call me that,_ " Agatha said, "and come on."

"B-But where?"

"A-Away from here," her mother mimicked. "Come on! Hurry you little bitch, before I kick your ass."

Eleanora moved as fast as she could, but that didn't stop Agatha from kicking her anyway.

Sebastian looked up and looked around. As usual, Eleanora was out of sight. But she would come when called; she had learned not to stray too far from him.

"Eleanora?"

She didn't come. He called her again, louder this time.

"Eleanora?"

Still nothing. He fought down some panic. Being a parent could be so stressful sometimes…But it was important to always remain calm.

"Eleanora?"

Pluto suddenly sat up and growled. Madam Red and Ciel looked up from the tea and the newspaper.

"What is it? What's going on?"

Pluto growled again and lunged for the trees.

"PLUTO!" Sebastian shouted. "STOP! Get back here! Stupid little…" He ran after the dog. He had to get to Eleanora before the mutt could hurt her…But the dog hadn't found Eleanora. He was sniffing around a tree and growling.

"What is it? What's going on?" Ciel asked. He and Madam Red had followed Sebastian once the butler had taken off.

"I don't know…" he said and trailed off. There was blood on the ground. He knelt down and gently touched the stained dirt and immediately stood back up again. There was a strong scent of alcohol in the vicinity.

"Eleanora? Pluto, do you know where Eleanora is?"

The demon hound only growled in reply and ran off to the gate. It began pawing at the gate and whimpering, looking murderous.

"Eleanora?" Sebastian called, looking around. "Eleanora?"

The gardener passed by, humming.

"Finny!" Ciel shouted and the gardener came over. "Finny, have you seen Eleanora?"

"Yes sir, I have."

"Really? When? Where is she? Where did she go?"

"She went that way," he pointed through the gates, "with the old lady."

"Old lady?" Sebastian murmured. "What old lady?"

"The old lady who smelled really bad, like she drank too much. She was dragging Lady along by her wrist, and Eleanora said that she thought that she should tell someone where she was going, but the old lady didn't let her go."

"And why didn't you stop this old lady?"

"Because Eleanora said, 'yes mother.'"

Sebastian stared at him.

"'Yes mother?'"

"Yes sir."

"She said 'yes mother?'"

"Yes sir," Finny said. "Is there something wrong?"

Sebastian leaned against a tree and pressed his hand against his face. When he looked up again, his eyes had turned demonic.

"…I need to make a phone call."


	28. Chapter 28

Eleanora's mother had dragged her to the East End—the worst part of London—and had dumped her in the basement of an abandoned house. The basement didn't smell nice and the windows were jerky and rarely stayed open and dirty water frequently leaked in. But she didn't complain or protest. She had only protested once: when her mother had thrown her in the basement, she had demanded that she give her all of her clothes. Eleanora had obediently stripped down to the bare essentials and had given her mother everything—after all, she needed money, and Eleanora didn't.

But when her mother demanded her shoes, Eleanora had paused.

"But…can't I keep them?" she asked.

Her mother had slapped her and called her a goddamned brat and the most spoiled and selfish child she had ever thought would exist. And when Eleanora started crying, she got slapped again and called more names.

Eleanora turned over her shoes—her nice, new shoes that she loved so much, the shoes that were her second true love. Then her mother left her, slamming the trapdoor behind her and locking it, leaving Eleanora alone in the smelly, dank basement.

Eleanora couldn't help it—she started to cry: just quiet sobs which steadily grew silent. She stood up and walked over to a puddle of water and stared at her reflection. Then she choked back another sob—it was true. Oh god, it was true. She _was_ a brat. She was the worst child she had ever seen—spoiled rotten to the core.

How could she have been so _stupid_? Throughout that month and a half without her mother, she had just been getting worse and worse. First the Madam, then child services, and finally Sebastian…All of them had been so kind to her and had catered to her every whim…And she had allowed them to!

She could have resisted. She could have insisted on eating stale bread and water and walking around barefoot—like she _deserved_ to. But no—instead she allowed them to feed her meat and warm bread straight from the oven covered in jam and butter…She had allowed them to buy her new clothes and she had worn them…She turned away from her reflection, almost unable to bear it. Her mother was right. She was such a little brat. Even _crying_ was brattish. She would stop immediately. She had no reason to cry. Others had it much worse than her—she had a mother! Others didn't have such a luxury. She would never cry again.

And she would never ask for anything ever again! No seconds at meals! No…What else had she asked for? She couldn't really remember, but she was sure that there was quite a long list. After all, brats always asked for so much…Oh right! She had asked to go with the Earl and Sebastian to the gassed manor. Would a nice child do such a thing? Of course not!

 _"But what if you hadn't gone?"_ she argued with herself. _"The murders might have continued!"_

 _"That's no excuse,"_ she insisted. _"I shouldn't have asked for anything. They had already done so much for me—they had given me free food, and free shelter, and were paying me…I had no right to ask anything of them."_

That's right. She didn't have the right to ask for anything. She didn't have the right to get anything. She didn't deserve anything. She deserved to be tossed out onto the street and forgotten, like the spoiled rotten garbage that she was.

She whimpered and bit her lip to stop herself from crying. She didn't deserve tears. She deserved absolutely nothing.

Agatha was in complete agreement with this mentality, because for the next week, that was exactly what Eleanora got: nothing. Her mother had pawned the clothes and used the money to buy more alcohol. She didn't give one thought to the girl locked in a basement in the worst part of town—but she noticed with a lot of terror that she was still aging.

She had realized that having the girl in her possession had kept her from aging, and giving her over to her father had started the process again—worse than that, the process was _increasing_. So she had naturally assumed that once she had gotten the girl back, time would freeze again and she would remain a forty-something-year-old for a couple more centuries. But it wasn't working. Why wasn't it working?

It wasn't working because before, Sebastian hadn't accepted her as his daughter. There would have been no one to look after her except her cambionic vessel—Agatha. But now that Sebastian had realized that she was his daughter, he wouldn't let anyone take her away from him. So there was no reason for Agatha to remain alive. Now there was someone else to take care of her, someone infinitely more capable. If she had been a kinder person, the aging would have continued normally. She would have continued living her life as a normal person, but because of her cruelty, the aging process was going much quicker so as to make her suffer more and to remove her from this world as fast as possible. It was a grim type of justice, which was always the unholy way.

No one had been feeding Eleanora. No one had stopped by to visit. No one had stopped to take care of her. She didn't mind. She felt— _knew_ —that she deserved everything bad that was happening to her. She tried to convince herself that it wasn't really "bad;" other people were suffering through much worse, but she was still just a little child—worse still, a vampire child who had been raised by humans. In other words, she didn't really know how to take care of herself.

Every now and then she tried biting her arm to drink her own blood, but it didn't really work. She just felt emptier after it; her own blood wasn't nourishing. She tried to wait for a rat to come by or something, so she could take some from it, but no rats appeared. They, like all the other humans around, had naturally assumed that the building was empty, and so there was no reason to go in and investigate the basement.

She collected some rags and boxes and things to try to make herself a bed, but then she quickly tore it down again. Only brats used beds, and she didn't want to be a brat. She didn't need a bed. She was fine on the rotting wet floor.

The thought of escape never crossed her mind. She stuck by the childish hope that eventually her mother would come by and see her—maybe curse at her or kick her or something. Imagine how angry she would be if she stopped by and Eleanora was gone! No, that would never do. She had to wait here patiently, without complaining, like a good little girl. She wasn't a brat. She wasn't a brat.

No, she _was_ a brat. The evidence was obvious. She didn't deserve to have her mother come and visit here. She didn't deserve anything.

Half of a week passed. She was feeling very ill.

No she wasn't! She was fine! Better than fine! Only brats felt ill…And she wasn't a brat. She _wasn't_!

She tried to stand tall but was forced to sit down. What would her mother say? She would call her a selfish bitch, and that was exactly what she was, too…

There was a hammering on the trapdoor above her. Eleanora looked up in hope. Her first thought was that it might be her mother…but then she realized that that wasn't it. Her mother was _never_ that eager to see her again. Besides, she had locked the door behind her, which meant that she had had a key, right? So why would anyone try to break in when they could use a perfectly good key?

It was probably bad people coming to hide stolen money or a dead body or something else disgusting and evil. They probably wouldn't hesitate beating her up and selling her to a pimp. She found the darkest corner, quickly built up a little fort around her out of the surrounding boxes, and tried to remain as still and as silent as possible.

Whoever-it-was broke down the trapdoor and several people crashed into the room, coughing. Eleanora closed her eyes and tried to know who they were. It was difficult and made her head hurt—her senses had gotten dulled from just staying in one place for a week and a half without any fresh air or company, and all the dust and bad-smells interfered with everything anyway. But she still was able to know that there were three of them: all men. Two of them weren't human and the only human one was foreign. This was bad. This was very, very bad.

The men were whispering to each other and knocking things over. Eleanora shuddered and curled up into a tight ball.

 _"Please go away,"_ she thought. _"Please, please go away…"_

For a moment, she thought that she heard Sebastian calling her name. But that was ridiculous. Sebastian was miles away, safely in Phantomhive, probably celebrating the fact that the damn brat was gone for good.

Then someone took the top off of her box fortress and Eleanora stared up in surprise and fear.

She was right—the human man was foreign. He just looked at her blankly and then his face broke out into a delighted smile.

"Sebastian, over here! I think I've found her!"

" _ELEANORA!"_

The foreign man was pushed aside and now Sebastian was standing over her. He looked so relieved and stressed; she wondered if he had been sleeping well.

Of course he hadn't. He had spent the last week and a half running around the East End of London, breaking and searching every building before moving on to the next one. All of his breaks had been forced upon him and even then they weren't very restful; he was too worried about his daughter.

But now she had been found, and all was well.

"Eleanora," he sighed and picked her up, holding her as tightly as he could without hurting her. She had gotten thinner. And she was also mostly naked.

"Where are your shoes?" he asked.

"Oh," she said offhandedly, wrapping her arms around his neck, savoring his comforting smell, "Mother took them. I think she pawned them."

" _What_? You mean that you let her? But you loved your shoes…"

Eleanora shrugged and held him tighter.

"Well, never mind," he said. "I'll buy you a new pair. I'll buy you as many pairs as you want! Would you like that?"

 _Selfish spoiled brat…_

"N-No," Eleanora tried to say, only she was so weak that no one really heard her.

Sebastian turned to his companions, beaming.

"Everyone, this is my daughter, Eleanora. Eleanora, look up and say hello to these nice men. They helped me find you. This is Agni (gesturing to the human foreign one) and the Undertaker (the inhuman one)."

Eleanora weakly nodded and tried to smile.

"Now," Sebastian said, unable to keep the relief and the happiness out of his voice, "let's get you home."


	29. Chapter 29

Eleanora was taken to the Undertaker's parlour. He had set up shop in the huge front room, but had several rooms in the back: a kitchen and a drawing room. There were two basements: one was below the front room and was also used for his business; the other was in the kitchen, underneath the dining table, and used for more personal things, like storage. There was an upstairs with three rooms and two bathrooms, plus a rather spacious back lawn.

The two men and Eleanora sat down at the table in the kitchen; the Undertaker started puttering around and made tea. He also got out a shot glass and a completely black, label-less bottle. He gave the tea to Sebastian and Agni and himself, but the shot glass was filled with a red liquid from the bottle and given to Eleanora.

"Here, drink this," he had told her. "You probably need it."

It was severely watered-down animal blood. She normally wouldn't have touched it, but she was thirsty and hungry and it seemed rude and brattish to refuse, so she gulped it down immediately. Oh! It tasted wonderful. The water dulled the flavors, but that made it taste all the gentler.

Sebastian poured her another shot and pulled her onto her lap, smiling down at her. Agni was making a phone call.

"Yes…Yes…Yes, we have her. We have her right here! Yes, she's in the Undertaker's shop…Yes, she's with Sebastian…Yes…Yes…Okay. Goodbye."

He hung up and turned to the group.

"Everyone is glad to hear it," he said. "They're calling off the search."

"Search?" Eleanora asked sleepily, cozying up to Sebastian. "What search?"

"We thought that we would cover more ground if we split up," Sebastian said. "Find you faster. Madam Red and Grell searched the upper-classes; the young Master and…the mutt searched the middle-classes, and Undertaker, Agni and I searched the lower-classes."

"Oh," Eleanora said, feeling a bit brattish again. She had caused so much trouble…She wished that she had told someone where she was going and who she was going with before she had left. She thanked the Undertaker and Agni profusely and promised herself to apologize to the others later.

She was beginning to fall asleep. Sebastian was so warm…and she felt so safe…She began drifting off when she heard the men quietly talking.

"…So it really was her mother?" the Undertaker asked.

"Yes," Sebastian said grimly. "The gardener told us. Her…'mother' had kidnapped her and left her all alone in that basement. I don't think that she visited even once…"

"But why would she do such a thing?" Agni said. "Why would she kidnap her?"

"I have a theory on that," Sebastian said, stroking Eleanora's hair. Eleanora, meanwhile, was pretending to be asleep. "I think that…she wants…to stop time."

"Meaning you think that she wants her little girl back?"

"Something like that," Sebastian said and he and the Undertaker shared a look. Agni didn't know yet that he was a demon, and it was better to keep it that way.

"How awful," Agni said. "Kidnapping and leaving her alone in such a place. Look at her! She looks as if she hasn't eaten in weeks. We can't give her back, that's for sure. Her mother would probably kill her if given the chance."

"So what are we going to do?" the Undertaker asked. "About the mother, I mean. If she tried it once before, she'll probably try it again."

"We'll wait," Sebastian said. "We'll just wait." He cuddled her and kissed the top of her head, startling her out of her half-sleep. "Oh, are you awake? It's getting late; you should probably go to bed; you've had a trying week…"

"Mm," Eleonora said, wrapping her arms around his neck as he stood up, still cradling her. "Are we going back to Phantomhive?"

"No, it's not safe there for you now. You're going to be staying here with the Undertaker for a little while." He began walking up the stairs to the second floor; Agni and the Undertaker were waving and shouting "goodnights;" Eleanora sleepily waved back and mumbled "thank-yous."

"You'll be a good girl and listen to him and do whatever he says, right?" Sebastian asked as he tucked her in. The Undertaker had kindly given her one of the spare bedrooms; the bathroom was just a bit across the hall. "Help him with his business or something and don't go anywhere without him. Understand?"

"Yes," Eleanora murmured, already falling asleep. Sebastian sat with her for a while, stroking her hair and humming a lullaby. "Sir?"

"Yes darling?"

"Why isn't it safe for me to go back to Phantomhive?"

Anger quickly flashed across his face but vanished in another second.

"We're worried that Agatha—your cambionic vessel—will try to kidnap you again, and this time she'll make it harder for us to find you."

"She didn't kidnap me. I went with her willingly."

"Sweetheart," Sebastian said, taking her hand and looking at her very seriously, "Agatha is _not_ your mother. She's a very weird and messed-up woman who will not hesitate to hurt you to get what she wants. You did _not_ go with her willingly. She threatened you and beat you and hurt you so that you would go with her. She is _not_ safe to be around, especially if you're alone with her. Agni was right—she would probably kill you if she thought that she could do it and get away with it. No matter what happens, you must _never_ be alone with her. If you see her coming, you just _run_. You run like you ran away from Grell. You run and you get someone reliable and you _stay_ with them. You must _never_ be alone with her. You must _never_ be with her again."

A part of Eleanora wanted to protest and insist that he was lying, but a deeper, much-more intelligent part told her that everything he was saying was true. Agatha wasn't her mother. Agatha hated her. Agatha would kill her. Agatha wasn't her mother.

She couldn't help it; she started crying. Like all young children, she wanted a mother; a _real_ mother who would look after her and care for her and love her. Agatha was the closest thing she had ever gotten to a mother, and she wasn't like a mother at all. She was horrible and cruel and hated her, but she _still_ wanted her to love her. Was that wrong? Perhaps that's what it means to be a child. And perhaps not. She was so confused; she just wanted to cry and then sleep and maybe eat something.

Sebastian hugged her, holding her close, whispering soothing, comforting things to her until she had calmed down enough to lie back down. Sebastian tucked her in again.

"I'll come here often," he promised her. "Every day. But you be a good girl. You will, right?"

Eleanora nodded sleepily and Sebastian kissed her forehead.

"Goodnight, darling," he whispered.

"Goodnight, sir," she whispered. He crept out of the room, turning off the lights as he did so, and then he walked back down to where the Undertaker and Agni were still discussing things.

"Don't worry about anything," the Undertaker said. "I'll take good care of her. I like her already! Reminds me of her grandfather. We'll have lots of fun here."

"Hm," Sebastian said absentmindedly, playing with the empty shot glass.

"Is it about the mother?" Agni said.

"Yes," Sebastian said, looking dark. "I wonder when she'll realize that Eleanora is missing…And I'm worried about what she'll do next."

"Don't worry," the Undertaker said. "The woman forgot that Eleanora existed for a week. I'm sure that she won't check on the girl for another two or so."

He was wrong. Agatha had looked at herself in the mirror, shuddering at her age, and had found a grey hair. She was still aging.

She had panicked and ran back to the old house where the little bitch was still hiding in the basement. She opened it up and ran around, screaming for the little whore and kicking things aside, just in case the bitch dared to hide from her.

But the bitch was gone and she was forced to calm down and try to remember. The basement had looked ransacked when she had entered. The basement door had been broken in.

Someone had entered and stolen away the fat bratty bitch. Agatha already knew who and started the long trek back to Phantomhive.

 _The goddamned demon._


	30. Chapter 30

Eleanora stayed with the Undertaker for about a week. During that week, she assisted the Undertaker with his business as much as she could. She never got close to a real dead body (the Undertaker said that Sebastian would kill him if he learned that such a thing had happened), but she was allowed to help make the coffins and take care of the Undertaker's irritable donkey, who very quickly became a very nice donkey indeed.

The days were fun and the nights were boring. After the funeral parlour would close, there would be almost nothing to do. Of course, there was dinner to make and tea to brew and things to clean and all that, but after everything was done, Eleanora usually just sat there. Sebastian would come—as promised—every night, but he didn't really bring much to the table. He cooed and fussed over her and told the Undertaker everything that he was doing wrong and then he and the Undertaker would get into a fight about parenting and then someone would get out the drinks and all would be forgiven five minutes later, then Eleanora would be sent to bed.

After a week of this, it was decided that it would be safe enough for Eleanora to return to Phantomhive. Sebastian got her in the very early hours of the day, so by the time the sun was rising, they were back at Phantomhive.

Everyone was pleased to see her. Madam Red and Grell had been half-dead with worry, which made Eleanora feel more like a brat than ever. She apologized thousands of times, but Sebastian always noticed that she was sorry for leaving without telling anybody, not for leaving with her mother. Clearly she still loved the woman, which had to be stopped immediately. Not just to ease Sebastian's jealousy, but for the girl's sake as well.

Sebastian hated to admit it, but he really _was_ jealous, which was absolutely ridiculous. A _demon_ being jealous of a _human_! But he was still jealous. He hated the way Eleanora always brought up the cambionic vessel; the way she always defended her; the way she always wanted to see her again. Wasn't he the better parent? Why didn't she behave towards him like that? She still called him "sir" or "Mr. Sebastian," just like a servant would, instead of something far more pleasant, like "Father" or "Daddy."

He tried to be encouraging and supportive and not to rush her into anything, but he still couldn't deny how much he hated that woman—Agatha Brown—due to entirely selfish reasons.

Eleanora had been at Phantomhive for about a day when Agatha came back.

She had never actually left. She had searched the premises of Phantomhive manor and had realized that the little bitch had been spirited away. She was no longer at Phantomhive, but the damned demon was, and Agatha didn't have the time or the patience to go out and search for her. So she had just stayed put, figuring that eventually they would send the girl back to the manor, and when they did, Agatha would already be there. So she had waited in the forests surrounding Phantomhive for a week, being extremely careful to avoid that weird naked man or the white dog that occasionally ran around.

She made her move the instant she realized that the bitch had returned.

She had snuck up to the kitchen window and had looked inside. It was just the demon and the bitch, but then a bell rung from someplace and the demon smoothed her hair and said something to her and then left, leaving the bitch so conveniently alone!

Agatha burst into the kitchen without bothering to knock. This was far more important than manners.

Eleanora was mixing batter for a cake for the Earl when someone entered. They reeked of liquor so it was hard for her to sort anything out based on scent alone, but when she turned around, she instantly recognized her mother.

She had gotten older again. She was now almost forty.

"Bitch," Agatha wheezed, staggering over to her. "Bitch. Who the ! told you to leave?"

"I-I'm sorry," Eleanora said. Something inside her told her to run and find someone, the way that Sebastian had told her to, but she couldn't run away from her mother. She was her mother!

Agatha's hand shot out and grabbed her ponytail. She began dragging her away and Eleanora started to resist.

"Wait," she said. "W-Wait. I have to tell someone where I'm going…"

"You _dare_ disobey me?!" Agatha shrieked, slapping Eleanora's head. "You damn _brat_!"

"I'm _not_ a brat!" Eleanora said. "I just have to tell someone, and then…"

"You _argue_ with me?!"

Agatha was so caught up in her rage that she didn't notice the demon creeping up behind her until she had been hurled against the wall.

The bitch was crying and bleeding and clutching her head. The demon knelt down next to her and pulled her close, whispering soothing things to her. He never stopped glaring at Agatha.

" _You_ ," he said in a quiet, dangerous voice. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to get the bitch back," Agatha gasped. Being thrown at a wall had left her quite winded.

"You can't take her," the demon said, picking her up. "You gave her up. Remember? You said that you were free."

"Does _this_ look like _freedom_ to you?!" Agatha shrieked, pulling on her grey-streaked hair. "Look at me! I'm _old_!"

"And it suits you," Sebastian said coldly. "Now go away before I call the police."

Eleanora gasped and looked up at him.

"You don't mean that…right?"

He just looked at her. Fear shot through Eleanora and she whimpered. She had never seen him so angry. And he was angry at _her_! Now she was _really_ going to get it. He would probably knock her into tomorrow. She didn't want to get hit again; her head _really_ hurt and her nose had started bleeding again. She whimpered again. She was _such_ a brat.

"Yeah, you don't mean that, right?" Agatha snickered, slowly standing up. "You won't _really_ call the police."

"I will," Sebastian said, turning back to the woman. "That and the asylum. I'll tell them that there's a seriously disturbed woman around who thinks that she owns my child. You're worried about dying of old age, right? It's either that or from a botched lobotomy. What a shame that I'll miss such a fun show."

Eleanora wished that he would put her down. She didn't want to be so close to such a horrible person—no, such a sadistic demon.

Agatha blinked and realized that he was being perfectly serious. She backed down and tried another approach.

 _"Please_ ," she wheedled. "All I want is my youth again! I want to live another life, free from that little _bitch_. Grant me my youth, and then I'll leave forever."

"You'll leave?"

"Yes!"

"Forever?"

"Yes!"

"You'll never come back?"

" _Yes_!"

"You'll never bother either of us again?"

"For the last time, _yes_!"

Sebastian looked away, thinking. Agatha wanted to scream with impatience. That or throw a chair at him. Eventually he looked back.

"There is one way that _might_ get your youth back," he said. "That or it'll stop the aging process and you'll be able to continue your life as normally as you can; the aging process will continue normally. Granted, I said that it _might_ work. It might not. Either way, I expect you to never come back after we try it."

"Of course! Anything you ask!"

"Come back Sunday," he said coldly and Agatha staggered away, singing drunkenly and trying to jump and click her heels.

"Did she hurt you, Eleanora?" Sebastian said, still watching the woman leave. "Did she hurt you a lot?"

"N-No," Eleanora said. She decided not to mention the headache.

"Good," he said and locked the kitchen door, the steely look still in his eyes.


	31. Chapter 31

Agatha came back on Sunday, just as she had promised. Madam Red had dragged the Earl and the servants off to church, leaving just Sebastian and Eleanora in the house.

"Why don't you go to church with the others?" Eleanora couldn't help asking.

"I'm…not allowed there anymore."

"Why not?"

"They started talking about roasting in Hell and then I started laughing."

Eleanora didn't really know where they were going, but it must have been important, because Sebastian had given her a bath and had scrubbed her skin until it was practically raw. He had brushed her hair and twirled the locks around his fingers so that they came out a bit more curly than usual. He dressed her in her nicest maid's outfit—minus the apron and such—and very carefully tried to make her look as neat as possible. Then he got dressed himself.

"Where are we going?" she asked him as she watched him putter around his room.

"We're going to church."

"But I thought that you weren't allowed there anymore."

"We're going to a different church," he said and removed three black scarves from a drawer.

The butler wasn't happy; Eleanora could smell the displeasure radiating off of him. Undoubtedly it had something to do with her. Sebastian knelt down before her and began wrapping the scarf around her head, trying to decide what looked better.

"Ah—Sir?"

"Hm?"

"Are you…angry with…me?"

"What gave you that idea?"

"You don't smell…happy."

Sebastian sighed and sat back, looking at her. He had wrapped the scarf around her head and had tied it to the side so that she looked like a Gypsy. It was very cute on her, but he wondered if it was dignified enough.

"I'm not angry," he said softly, touching her head. "To be perfectly honest, I don't know _what_ I am." He looked at her some more. "You disobeyed me," he said. "I told you to run whenever you were alone with that woman, and you didn't run. If I hadn't come in in time, you would have gone with her again, right?"

"N-No, I would have told someone where I was going…"

"Darling, the problem isn't _where_ you're going; it's _who_ you're going with. I told you before: she's _dangerous_. And you don't seem to understand that! Why do you _like_ her so much?" This last sentence he had mumbled to himself, so Eleanora didn't really understand it.

"What…What did you say?"

He forced a small laugh and kissed her head.

"Nothing dear," he said and decided that the Gypsy look was just fine. He stood up and walked to the mirror, expertly wrapping another scarf around his head.

Eleanora began swinging her legs as she watched him.

"By the way, why are we wearing this?"

"Respect," he called back.

"Respect for what?"

"Respect for the dead. Where I'm from, covering the head is a sign of respecting the fallen. My people…" here he hesitated, "my people have gone through a _lot_ of wars and persecutions, and many people have died. There are some places where _so_ many people have died, that the whole area is one huge graveyard so that everyone wears a head covering all the time. But most of the time, people only wear them in churches and in cemeteries. Understand?"

He smiled at her and picked up a top hat and a bonnet. He tied the bonnet around her and put the top hat on himself.

"Don't take it off," he told her. "Not until I tell you to."

"But if we're wearing hats, why do we need the scarves?"

"Oh, it's just a preemptive measure. Just in case the hat falls off or something. Normally I wouldn't go through the trouble, but as this is your first time, I want to make a good impression." He smiled and again kissed her head. "Are you ready?"

Agatha was waiting for them outside, looking sulky. She especially looked displeased upon seeing Eleanora dressed all clean and pretty.

Sebastian threw her the last scarf.

"Put this on your head," he growled and strode away from her.

"What? Why?"

"Because I said so."

Agatha spat and tore the scarf, throwing it into the ground and stomping on it.

"Fine," Sebastian said, not in the least disturbed, "don't wear it."

"Why the hell _should_ I have to wear it anyway?" Agatha said, staggering after them.

"Oh, it just might have increased your chances for getting you what you want, but if you don't want to, then…"

Agatha was horrified; she looked back on the destroyed scarf.

"Get me another one!"

"No."

"I said, _get me another one_!"

"She can use mine," Eleanora offered tentatively. Sebastian felt a pang of jealousy and tried to suppress it.

"She'll be _fine_ ," he said. "And let's hurry. I have to get home before the others arrive."

Soon they were standing in front of a huge church.

It was tall and scary and looked like a creepy form of Gothic architecture. Eleanora whimpered and grabbed Sebastian's hand, startling him. He smiled down at her and told her not to be afraid.

"Let's go," he said in a distinctly less-nice voice to Agatha.

The inside was even creepier. The stained-glass windows showed various demons instead of saints. The grotesque figures leered down on them; they seemed to be watching very closely. The paintings on the walls showed people writhing in agony and screaming. It looked like the exact opposite of every human church that Eleanora had ever gone to.

They entered the Great Hall. Many people were sitting in the pews, quietly singing prayers to themselves. Sebastian strode on until they reached the end of the hall, where there were several massive statues.

The first foremost statue was of a huge demon. He was frowning rather splendidly down on the Great Hall, with huge teeth jutting out of his mouth. He had elaborate horns curling out of his head and bat-like wings. Instead of nails he had claws; instead of feet he had goat's legs; he was incredibly muscular and looked as if he could cheerfully step on someone and kill them instantly.

The statue to the left of the demon was of a man wearing glasses. He was dressed in long, neat robes and was also frowning. One of his arms had numerous books tucked under it; the other hand held a sword.

The statue to the right of the demon was of a rather pretty woman in a nun's habit. She was smiling peacefully and happily, with one hand raised in a strange gesture and the other one holding an open book.

Beneath the three big statues were seven littler statues, each of a different man or woman. Above the three big statues, painted behind them, was a hooded figure with a scythe: Death itself.

Sebastian bowed to the statues and mumbled something, crossing himself. Eleanora tried to mimic his gesture, which made him smile. Agatha made a loud, angry noise.

Several nuns approached them. One of the nuns was dressed much more elaborately and looked older and more dignified.

"Yes?" the dignified one said. "How can we help you?"

Sebastian did a small bow to her.

"Mother," he said, "this woman needs your help."

"Oh?" the Mother said, frowning at Agatha. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's a cambionic vessel. Her aging process has begun again and she wants it to stop."

The Mother scoffed.

"What's in it for me?"

"How _rude_!" Agatha tried to say but Sebastian stopped her.

"If you won't do it for the woman," he said, giving the nun his best smile, "won't you please do it for this little girl's happiness?"

The Mother looked down at Eleanora, who did a small curtsey, and she smiled.

"Darling thing," she cooed and the nuns behind her agreed. "But I need more than what's currently on offer," she said, turning to Sebastian. "Regaining and keeping lost youth is an onerous task. It's very difficult to accomplish, and it usually doesn't work."

"I can provide a large donation to this church," he said.

"Oh really? How much?"

He said something in another language and the nuns behind the head nun gasped.

"That's quite the tidy sum," the Mother said, unperturbed. "I hope you won't regret spending so much?"

"I assure you," Sebastian said, smiling, "money is not a problem."

"Hmph!" the Mother said and turned to Agatha. "Very well; come with us and let's get this over with."

Agatha hesitated and was dragged away by the nuns. The unholy are not renowned for their patience.

Sebastian sat down in one of the pews with a sigh and lifted Eleanora up onto his lap.

"Who are they?" Eleanora whispered, hesitantly pointing to the statues.

"Those? That man in the centre is Our Lord Who Burns in Hell—Satan. The one on the left is Sint Michael, the ex-angel. And the woman on the left is Sint María."

"Who are the little statues?"

"Those are the Seven Sints of the Seven Deadly Sins—Beelzebub, Abaddon, Mammon…"

Eleanora looked closely at the Seven Sints. They were smaller and closer so it was easier to see their features. The first one looked very sour and was glaring enviously at the line of other demons. The second one was monstrously fat and sat on a throne of food. The third one was surrounded by bags full of money. The fourth one—

Eleanora gasped. The fourth one _smiled at her_.

It couldn't be possible, but it was. The fourth one was handsome and so familiar—he reminded her of Sebastian. He was reclining on a couch that was supported by mostly-naked people and he smiled at her. His stone lips parted, revealing teeth that looked just like hers'.

"S-Sir?" she squeaked.

"Yes? What is it?"

"One of them smiled at me."

The statue had frozen in position again.

"Oh? Which one?"

"The fourth one…"

"That's Asmodeus Michaelis—my great-grandfather on my father's side." He smiled down at her. "He smiles for me too, sometimes. It's good that he's smiling. That means that he accepts you as part of the family—and that he's proud of you."

Eleanora moved on to the next statue—it was of a woman surrounded by mirrors, who smiled at her as well.

"Sir? The statue next to the other one just smiled too."

"That's my great-grandmother on my mother's side—Lucifer Elengede—your great-great grandmother."

"Is she dead now?"

"Oh yes. She's been dead for a while now—as has Asmodeus." He sighed.

"But I thought that demons were immortal?"

"Nobody's immortal, dear. That painting proves it." He gestured to the portrait of Death, looming eerily behind the statues. "No matter how powerful we are, eventually we all go to Death. Unholies just live much, _much_ longer than humans do, and we're _very_ hard to kill, so the rumor started that we're immortal. But we aren't," he said and shrugged.

Then the nuns appeared, with a soaking-wet and spluttering Agatha with them. Sebastian stood up.

"Well? How did it go?"

"It didn't work," the Mother said, looking at Agatha. "We tried everything. Sometimes it works if the cambionic vessel has been a good one—I don't know what she did, but María must be _very_ unhappy with her."

"You don't _seriously_ believe that some _dead saint_ can actually _impact your life_?" Agatha coughed, shaking the water off of her.

The Mother and the nuns frowned.

" _What_ a rude human," the Mother said. "If I was Lady María, _I_ wouldn't give you what you want either! Good day, madam."

"Wait," Sebastian said and quickly wrote out a check. "Thank you for everything. Good day, Mother, Sisters."

"Thank you," Eleanora said and the nuns smiled at her again.

" _Such_ a nice girl. _You_ could learn some manners from her," the Mother told Agatha and then the three of them left the Satanistic Church.

"So what now?" Agatha moaned. "What happens now?"

"Now you fulfill your end of the bargain and leave us alone forever," Sebastian said.

" _What_?! That wasn't part of the deal! The deal _was_ that you make me young again, and then—"

"…The deal _was_ that I _try_ to make you young again, and regardless of whether it would work or not, you would leave us alone. Good day," he said, picking up Eleanora and striding back towards Phantomhive, ignoring Agatha's screams behind him.

 _"This isn't over!"_ she shouted. " _This isn't over at all!"_


	32. Chapter 32

A week passed. No Agatha came around and Sebastian started to relax. He allowed Eleanora to go outside all alone but he got into the habit of checking on her before he went to sleep, making sure that she was curled up in her bed and not running off with the cambionic vessel. Sebastian was slowly getting more and more confident—so confident that he was sure that Agatha would never bother them again—that or she had died already, from too much drink or from age or from a tragic accident. He would have to check with Grell to see when and how she died.

But Agatha wasn't dead. She was still quite alive and pretty active for a fifty-something-year-old woman, steadily going on seventy. Her hair was now almost completely grey; her face was lined and had started to sag; her hands now trembled with age and not just with liquor.

While in body she was an old hag, in mind she was still a young woman of twenty. And like all twenty-year-olds, dying scared her. Most twenty-year-olds are able to push the thought of Death from their minds because they figure it won't happen to them for a while, but Agatha's death was steadily coming closer and closer and closer…She couldn't die. She wouldn't let herself die. Something had to be done.

So she went back to Phantomhive.

The little bitch was alone in the kitchen, just as she had been when Agatha had tried to kidnap her again. The demon wasn't around. Nobody was around. It was the perfect time.

Fear and centuries of drunkenness had scrambled Agatha's mind. She had no idea what she would do. She had no idea how to save herself. All she realized was that _the bitch was the cause of all of her problems. Destroy the bitch and save yourself. For you to live the bitch must die. The bitch must die. The bitch must die. The bitch must DIE!_

The clean kitchen air grew tainted with the smell of fear and alcohol. Eleanora turned around, wondering who it was and what had happened, and then Agatha lunged at her.

Her mother began hitting her and screaming and furniture was being knocked around and then Agatha grabbed a knife from the counter…

 _"KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH! KILL THE BITCH!"_

Eleanora was filled with fear and pain. Her head hurt worse than it had ever hurt before and there was blood, so much black blood…She vaguely remembered everything that Sebastian had told her…

 _"…she would probably kill you if she thought that she could do it and get away with it. No matter what happens, you must never be alone with her. If you see her coming, you just run. You run like you ran away from Grell. You run and you get someone reliable and you stay with them. You must never be alone with her. You must never be with her again..."_

Agatha was still screaming and still hitting her with the knife and there was pain, so much pain; she wanted to run; she wanted to defend herself but she was her mother and she didn't know what to do what to do what to do…

There was an animal-like roar and then Agatha was hurled away from Eleanora. Sebastian bent over his daughter, snarling. His demon eyes flashed and his teeth had grown sharp and his gloves had torn, revealing long, sharp black nails. He didn't look like the calm, composed butler of Phantomhive. He didn't look human at all.

Demons aren't human. They are merely incredibly intelligent animals that look like humans. And if an animal's child is injured, the animal parent usually overreacts.

Sebastian was no different. He heard his daughter scream and immediately ran downstairs and when he saw his daughter being attacked, he reacted extremely violently. He crouched over his daughter, protecting her, watching the enemy slowly rise to her feet, waiting for the opportune moment to pounce and rip her throat out and end the threat forever. And he most certainly would have done it if Eleanora hadn't thrown her arms around him, sobbing, effectively calming him down and making him remember that he was a butler, and not a demon—not _yet_ anyway.

He slowly rose up, trying to calm himself down.

" _You_ ," he snarled. "Why are you here?"

Agatha wheezed. She couldn't speak, he had attacked her too violently.

"She didn't mean it," Eleanora pleaded, gripping Sebastian's leg. "She didn't mean it. I'm fine! Really!"

She coughed and brought up blood. Her head _really_ hurt.

Sebastian turned to look at his daughter and Agatha saw her chance.

After the last time, she knew better than to go into Phantomhive without some protection. So she had "borrowed" a gun from the hole that she was staying in and it was in her pocket right now and she drew it out, aiming it at the demon's head…

He noticed and kicked it out of her hands, his hand went around her throat and she was pinned to the wall and he started to squeeze…

" _NO!_ " Eleanora screamed and threw herself in front of Agatha, forcing Sebastian to release the woman. " _NO!_ Don't kill her! You _can't_ kill her! Don't kill her, _please_!"

"Eleanora," Sebastian said in an eerily serene voice, "step aside."

"N-No."

" _Now_ , Eleanora."

"NO!"

Sebastian just looked at her, looked at her standing bravely in front of the _damned_ cambionic vessel, the woman behind her cowering in fright...He lunged for his daughter and threw her over his shoulder, making sure that her mouth was nowhere near his skin.

Agatha saw a very weird sight: the bitch's eyes grew luminous with diamond pupils and her fangs elongated and she was hissing like a _very_ pissed-off snake and wriggling and trying to bite the demon…But the demon left the ruined kitchen and Agatha grabbed her gun and fled the manor, heading towards the woods.

Sebastian took Eleanora upstairs to her room and dropped her on the bed. She scrambled to her feet and charged for the door but by then he had already locked it and she rammed herself against the wood, sobbing.

 _"The window…"_

She ran for the window, but as he was walking downstairs he snapped his fingers and the window shut itself and became locked. Eleanora fought with it for a time, beating against the glass.

 _"NO!_ " she screamed. " _NO, NO, NO!_ "

Agatha hid in the woods, waiting for her prey. Soon enough, she could hear branches snapping underfoot and she whirled around and shot the demon square in the head.

The demon's head flew back with the force of the bullet. But he didn't fall down. He just went very, very still. Then his head slowly rose up and Agatha could see the blood streaming down his forehead but he didn't seem to care…He raised his hand and slowly, deliberately, spat the bullet into his palm.

He rubbed it between his fingers for a time, admiring her terrified face. Then he smirked and raised his arm and threw the bullet straight into her head.

Eleanora crouched at the window, whimpering, trying not to sob so that she could hear everything. She had seen her mother dart into the woods and she had seen the butler leisurely follow her and then she had heard a gunshot and then that was it. Who had fired? Was the butler dead? Was her mother dead?

"Please don't let her be dead," she prayed to whoever might have been listening. "Please, _please_ don't let her be dead…"

But the butler walked out of the woods a few minutes after the gunshot. His head was bleeding but most horrifyingly of all was Agatha's limp body slung over his shoulder.

Eleanora couldn't hear anything over the sound of her own screams.

It was incredibly easy to dispose the body and frame the person. He merely found the inn where she had been staying at, dumped the body nearby, and put the gun in the innkeeper's room. He was a drunk as well; the whole thing was almost too simple to be true.

Sebastian went back to Phantomhive to get himself and the kitchen cleaned up. Everything was perfect several hours before the young Master and the others would return from town; he had plenty of time to make a cute little chocolate cake and bring it up to Eleanora.

He unlocked the door and entered the room. She was sitting at the windowsill, her head buried in her knees and arms.

"Eleanora," he said softly. "Sweetheart." He placed the cake on the bedside table and sat down next to her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She stiffened in his arms but didn't pull away.

"Eleanora," he tried again. "It had to be done."

Suddenly she wrenched herself out of his arms and glared at him. Hot, bloody tears sprang out of her eyes and she began to wail.

"It _didn't_!" she shouted. "It _didn't_! She didn't _have_ to die! She didn't _have_ to die and you _killed her_!"

"I had to," he said quietly. "It was for your own good. Eleanora, if I had let her live, she would have killed you—or at least seriously injured you. Look at yourself! _She_ did that to you. Eleanora, she _had_ to die."

"No she didn't," Eleanora whispered, clenching her hands into fists. "No she _didn't_!"

Sebastian stood up and tried to touch her head. She moved away from him.

"Give it time," he said, "and eventually you'll realize that we're all much better off with her permanently out of the way. Eleanora…" He tried to say something but he couldn't, because if he did, he would be lying. Instead he tried to touch her again but she turned away from him and he left the room.

"I hate you," he heard her whisper fiercely to herself as the door closed behind him. "I _hate you."_

Sebastian had to lean against the wall upon hearing that. Those words were a direct knife to the heart. He had no idea that three words could cause so much pain. He passed his hand over his eyes and steadied himself. He went back downstairs to prepare dinner and thought about the lie that he had wanted to tell her: the lie, _"I'm sorry."_

Eleanora didn't touch the cake. About three hours later she tried the door and realized that it was unlocked. The butler—no, the _demon_ —had left a little dinner outside the door. It smelled absolutely delicious and was very beautiful but she resisted the allure of a meal. She closed the door and locked it herself and for good measure shoved the chair from the desk under the doorknob.

Several hours passed. Everyone was asleep. Even Sebastian, who had been pacing his bedroom with worry, had eventually collapsed at his desk. She could smell the sleep—the warm, peaceful safety that sleep always brings. She thought about leaving a note but decided against it upon remembering that she couldn't write. She went to her closet and put on her old rags—the rags that she had arrived in Phantomhive with—and got all of her savings from working as a maid. She looked around her little room for what would hopefully be the last time and opened the window.

It was relatively easy for her to crawl down the manor and land with a small "thud!" on the ground. She looked around at the manor, the manor that she had thought was her home, and then she ran off into the night.

Ciel Phantomhive woke up to animal-like howls. Someone was screaming in pain and terror. Moments later Sebastian burst into the room, looking wild and disheveled.

" _GONE!_ " he wailed. "She's _GONE!"_

"Who's gone?" Ciel asked sleepily.

"Eleanora! She ran away!"


	33. Chapter 33

The newspapers reported Agatha Brown's death the next day. The police already had their criminal: John Wallace, the man who ran the inn where Agatha had been staying. The bullet in Agatha's head had been traced to the gun that was in Wallace's room. He said that the gun was his, he had bought it several years ago, but that didn't mean that he had killed the woman. The police didn't believe him: Agatha had had several debts to pay to Wallace and both of them were drunkards. There could have been a drunken argument over the money and then Wallace could have rage-killed Agatha. Wallace was arrested, London was safe again, signed and sealed, done.

Everything had worked out perfectly, and if Sebastian hadn't been so concerned about his runaway child, he would have spent many weeks laughing over his crime—the way that he had been able to murder someone and get away with it—nobody had ever even suspected him!

But he was too busy being worried about Eleanora to fully appreciate his cleverness.

Eleanora herself was hiding in a small alley in the East End. She had wanted to attend Agatha's funeral, but she didn't dare do it, just in case the demon was there, watching, waiting for her. But she couldn't stay in the East End forever. Something bad could happen to her or the demon could find her again. She couldn't tell which fate would have been worse.

She tried to be strong. She tried to be brave. Maybe she was neither. She had run away from Phantomhive—run away from the demon. She couldn't stand being there. In the kitchen, where she had failed to protect her mother…In the woods, where her mother had been mercilessly murdered…In every room, looking at the demon, the beast who had killed her mother…

In the darkness and the filth of the East End, Eleanora fell asleep.

She had the strangest dream. She was alone in a room, where white feathers were falling all around her, making everything soft and pretty, as if it was snowing.

And suddenly a man appeared before her.

He smelled familiar—as if they were related somehow. He _looked_ familiar too: he had long black hair that fell around his shoulders, white skin, dark circles under his eyes, and glistening fangs. He was the man in the church—that statue that had smiled at her.

"Well," the man said, grinning down at her, "what do we have here? A little runaway? How interesting!"

"Wh-What do you want?" Eleanora said. "Where did you come from?"

"You might say I came from beyond the grave," the man said and waved his fingers at her ridiculously. "Wooooh! Scary! But seriously," here he turned grave and sat down cross-legged in front of her, "what are you planning on doing, Eleanora?"

"How do you know my name?"

"I make it a point to always look after my beloved family, even when I myself have faded away from this world. Now pay attention. I'm going to tell you what to do."

Eleanora straightened up and looked attentive.

"In the morning, when you wake up," the man told her, "go to the train station and buy a ticket for the 666 train. Board it, and you're going to get off on the seventh stop. You understand? The _seventh stop_. And once you've gotten off on the seventh stop, get a cab and go to this address." He gave her a small piece of white paper with writing on it. Eleanora squinted at it; as usual, she couldn't read. "Do you understand?"

"The 666 train," Eleanora repeated. "The seventh stop. This address."

"Good girl," the man said approvingly. "It's time to wake up now. You take care of yourself, Eleanora."

And she felt herself rising upwards, as if she had sunk below the earth somehow, and then she was jolting herself awake.

At first she thought that it was nothing more than an incredibly detailed dream, but the paper with the address was clenched in her fist.

She thought about what she should do. Clearly she couldn't stay in an alley for the rest of her life, but following a dream seemed like something a maniac would do. There was a crashing sound and a scream in the distance and Eleanora made her decision: even if it was madness, the dream had given her a plan, something which she didn't have.

She dusted herself off, got her savings, and trotted off to the London train station.

The train was easy to find. It was in the far back of the train station, completely black with the numbers 666 written on the front of it in crimson. The line to buy a ticket for the train moved quickly; soon Eleanora was standing in front of the lady at the desk.

"Documentation, please," she said without looking up from her notebook.

"I…don't have documentation," Eleanora said hesitantly. She didn't know that she needed documents. She had taken a train before; all they had needed then was money.

The lady looked up from her book and peered down at Eleanora.

"…Where are your parents, young lady?"

"I…They're not around."

"You're unaccompanied?"

"Yes ma'am."

The lady punched in something near the strange machine next to her.

"Fare, please."

Numbers had always confused Eleanora; money more so. She just handed her savings over. The lady raised an eyebrow but counted out some money and gave the rest back to Eleanora. She pulled a lever on the machine next to her and a ticket popped out.

"Car number six, booth five. Next please!"

Eleanora dropped a small curtsey, mumbled a "thank you!" and ran off to the train.

She found the right compartment and sat down quickly, scooting herself to the window and trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. Moments later, a laughing family entered the booth and sat down across from them—a mother, a father, and a little girl.

Eleanora couldn't help but look at them enviously. _That_ was what families were supposed to be like. They should be warm and loving and cozy. She could see the love radiating off of them, like heat. The mother fussed over her daughter while the father laughed and made jokes. Eleanora couldn't help but compare them to her own life: a dead, abusive mother and a sadistic heartless demon for a father. What had she done to deserve such a life? Why wasn't she given a warm, happy family like that other girl had?

 _"Because I'm a cambion,"_ she thought guiltily. _"Because I had been born."_

She curled up at the window and watched the train pull out of the station. The car gently rocked back and forth as the train sped up and zoomed away from London, into the unknown. Eleanora felt her eyes closing. Soon she was in a restless sleep.

She slept as the train entered the countryside, where nobody ever went. She slept as the train entered and passed the Threshold, the border between the human world and the other world. She slept as the train made its stops and kept on going down, down, down. She kept on sleeping and only woke up when she heard the conductor shout into the compartment,

"Seventh stop: Netherworld!"


	34. Chapter 34

Eleanora wasn't sure where she was. The train station in London had been hot, dirty, and full of annoyed angry people. This train station was clean and airy and all the people around didn't seem stressed at all—everything was working with perfect efficiency.

She had to go through another line to get away from the train station. The lady at the counter asked for her name and made her prick her finger and bleed on a square on a paper. But once she was outside the train station, she looked around in shock.

The world where she was in was much cleaner and brighter than the world that she had left. The colors were more vibrant, the setting sun warmer, the air purer. All of the people around were dressed in lovely clothes and they all were quite attractive. She wondered if she had gotten off on the wrong step and ended up in Paradise.

She checked to make sure that the address was still safely clutched in her fist. Then she set off to find a cab.

There was one parked outside the train station. Unlike the cabs in London, which were essentially small horse-drawn carriages, this one was a very shiny car. She nervously rapped on the window with her knuckles and the driver rolled it down.

"Yes miss? What can I help you with?"

"I-I need to go somewhere," she said shyly. "Can you take me?"

"Certainly, if you have the money and the address."

Eleanora got into the backseat and gave the address to the driver. She peeked at the remainder of her savings: there seemed to be quite a lot left, but then again, she wasn't sure.

"…Miss, are you sure you want to go here?" The driver seemed nervous.

"Why yes. Why?"

"Nothing, miss; it's just that this place isn't really suitable for…young people like…yourself." The driver eyed warily Eleanora's tattered dress.

"I'm sorry, but that's the only place I have to go," Eleanora said. The driver shrugged and drove off.

Eleanora didn't sleep; she was too interested in her surroundings. There were streets and carriages, just like in London, only these carriages were pulled by unholy horses, like the one at Phantomhive. They had bat wings and horns and skeletal faces with vampiric fangs. What had the butler called them? Telstras?

The buildings were beautiful and the people more so. But as the cab sped on, Eleanora noticed something strange: there were no beggars out on the streets. This place truly was a Paradise.

It took about three hours, but eventually the cab pulled up to a huge mansion, even bigger than Phantomhive. There were lights in the windows and lots of carriages were pulled up around it. Clearly someone was having a party.

"Here we are, miss," the driver said. "But if I were you, I'd ask to go somewhere else. This is the Michaelis' city home."

"Michaelis?" Eleanora asked, bringing out her money.

"Yes," the driver said as he counted out his fare. "The Michaelis is one of the most powerful families in Hell—the second most powerful, the second most-rich, and the first most liked. Very dangerous people. I'd stay far away from them if I were you. It's not safe to get on their bad side."

"I'll be fine," she said. "Keep the change."

She left the cab and watched it slowly pull away and drive off into the night. Then she walked up to the front doors, which were guarded by two men with blank expressions.

"Invitation, please," one of them said.

"Oh!" Eleanora said. "Uh…Here you go." And she gave him her ticket stub from the train.

"This isn't an invitation," the man said.

"Of course it isn't," Eleanora said, thinking fast. "The real one is right behind you."

Both of the men turned around and Eleanora darted past them, into the house. The men immediately started to give chase, still looking blank, as if they didn't have minds of their own.

Eleanora ran as fast as she could, running up halls and down halls and once up a magnificent staircase before ducking into a huge room, filled with people.

A party.

Parties were good to hide in because there's so many people around. Eleanora ducked into the crowd and wandered away, always looking behind her just in case the men had followed her inside.

They hadn't. She saw them peek into the room and then walk away, going back the way that they had come.

She was getting odd looks from the partygoers. She found a dark corner and hid, watching and waiting. Why had the dream told her to come here? Maybe there was someone here who could help her. But the man in the dream had told her to go to the address and that was it, not to seek out someone. Eleanora began to feel a little lightheaded. There were many people around, so many scents, so many colors, so much to know and in such a small space…She had to lean against the wall for support and noticed a woman was staring at her.

This woman was beautiful. She was mostly a soft, candy-red: the color of love. There was darkness around her, indicating that she was an unholy. Eleanora tried to concentrate, and in-between all the other scents, she realized that the woman smelled familiar—as if they were related somehow. She also realized that the woman was a demon.

In fact, know that she was thinking about it, she realized that _everyone_ in the party wasn't human. There were demons and vampires and other things that she couldn't recognize, but there were only a couple of humans in the throng; the rest were unholy.

But the woman was still staring at her, probably wondering why a stabbed-up beggar girl was in her party. She reached out and grabbed a man and began whispering to him, gesturing with her head towards Eleanora.

This man wore a mask. Lots of people in the party wore masks—the vampires. The man was mostly black but he also smelled familiar. He turned and began looking at her with curiosity. Eleanora began to feel a little uncomfortable. She moved away to another corner.

Music started and a dance begun. It was lovely but it made her head hurt. She felt a bit overwhelmed; she wanted to go outside and get some air. She began looking around for a balcony or something but then someone stood in front of her and knelt down before her.

"Hello," the person said in a beautiful voice, like a chorus of bells. "Are you lost, little one?"

It was the woman, the woman who had been staring at her. She smiled at Eleanora and her smile was so familiar…Eleanora had seen it before…

 _It was the butler's smile_.

Her eyes were a lovely sunset pink— _the exact color of the demonic eyes of the butler._

Eleanora was too frightened to move or to speak; she froze and just stared at the woman in terror.

The woman laughed lightly and pushed a strand of hair back from her face. She was lovely by human standards, with rosy cheeks and golden-blonde hair that curled in natural ringlets.

"Poor thing," she said. "Are you lost?"

The beggar girl was looking a bit sick.

"Oh, is this your first time at a party? You should be wearing a mask. You poor thing. Why don't you come with me? Then we can find your parents."

Eleanora was feeling too ill to protest. The woman gently took her hand and led her out of the ballroom.

She was taken to a sitting room and placed on the couch. The woman kept looking at her strangely.

"You look familiar," she suddenly said. "And your soul is remarkably similar to others that I know. Have we met before?"

Eleanora shook her head rapidly.

"Well, no matter," the woman said brightly. "You just wait here and make yourself at home. I'll be right back."

She left the room. Eleanora looked around her. The room was very luxurious—gold and precious gems were shining everywhere, the couch she was sitting on was so very soft and silky, there was a golden Victrola and a telephone and a big cabinet filled with crystal glasses and fine wine.

The woman returned a few minutes later.

"He's coming now," she said, partly to herself, partly to Eleanora. "Now then, dear," she said, sitting across from her, "What's your name?"

"E-Eleanora, ma'am."

"Where are your parents?"

"I don't have any."

"What? None? What about your mother?"

"She's dead."

"Your father?"

"I never had one to begin with."

"Oh! How sad," the woman said and she actually looked very sorry to hear it. "But how did you end up here?"

"I…uh…" Eleanora said, feeling awkward. "Uh…a dream told me to come here. I woke up and I had the address in my hand."

"A dream? Did someone appear to you in this dream?"

"Y-Yes, that man in the church…"

"What man in the church?"

"One of the Seven Sints; the fourth one…"

"The fourth Seven Sint," the woman murmured, looking away. "The fourth one…The Demon of Lust…Asmodeus." She looked back at Eleanora. "Asmodeus? Are you sure that it was Asmodeus?"

"I…think so."

" _THERE_ , I'm _here_ ; now what is so goddamned important that I couldn't start the drinking game and who in the name of all that is sweet and delicious is _this_ _delightful_ little _crumpet_?"

Eleanora looked up in shock. A man had just entered the room—the man that the woman had talked to in the party. He grinned at her, his vampire teeth flashing. He was tall and dashing, with skin as white as Eleanora's and the dark circles under his eyes, as if he had been punched in the cheeks. His medium-length black hair was tied back with a bit of dark-red ribbon and his green eyes were bright with merriment and maliciousness.

"Jean," the woman said, "This is Eleanora. She said that she was told to come here by Asmodeus."

"Grandfather?" the man said. "The man's been dead for thousands of years, Rose; only a Michaelis would warrant a visit from him…"

"But look at her," Rose murmured. "She looks just like us. She has your black hair, and her hair curls like mine. She's a vampire, and her soul is so, so familiar…"

"You know something; you're right," Jean said, frowning at Eleanora. "She has the Michaelis scent. But you know who she _really_ reminds me of?"

They shared a look and then Jean stepped forward.

"Miss, if I may have your hand, please."

Eleanora tentatively gave him her hand. He turned it over and sank his fangs into her palm. He remained like that for a while before extracting his teeth and licking his lips, savoring the taste of her blood. He looked very angry; his pupils had become diamond-shaped.

"Well?" Rose asked.

"I have to make a phone call," Jean growled and strode over to the phone. He swirled in the numbers and leaned against the desk, waiting.

"Hello?" he said in a cheerful falsetto. "Is Mr. Sebastian Michaelis present? Would you _kindly_ tell him that there's a young lady here that _desperately_ wants to talk to him? Oh thank you _soo_ much!" He waited some more. "Hello? Sebastian? _Wonderful_ news, sugar pie. I was just having a party—just a _small_ affair, mind you; _so_ sad you couldn't come—and then I see this sweet little cupcake in a corner. So naturally I questioned her, we had a few drinks; and guess what her name was? _Eleanora Michaelis._ " There was silence. Jean looked even angrier and he dropped the falsetto. " _The ! is your daughter doing here, Sebastian?"_

"Eleanora!" they heard Sebastian's voice on the other end. "Is Eleanora there? Where is she? Is she alright? Is she safe? I have to talk to her!"

 _"DON'T CHANGE THE SUBJECT MARMITE!"_ Jean shouted. " _Why the hell's your daughter wandering around the Seventh Level without a proper escort?!_ "

"I-I don't know; I haven't seen her since yesterday; is she alright? Let me talk to her!"

"You know what you are?" Jean said. "You, my good spam, are _disowned_. You hear me? _DISOWNED_! _D-I-S-S-O-H-_ um-H-uh…Shit, how do you spell this? Well, never mind, because you are still _disowned_!"

"Let me talk to him," Rose said, taking the phone out of Jean's hand. "Hello? Sebastian?"

"Mother?" Sebastian said on the other end. "Is Eleanora there? Is she safe? Is she alright? Is she scared? Where is she? I'm coming over there immediately!"

Eleanora gasped and shook her head rapidly.

"I don't think she wants to see you," Rose said coolly. "But why is she here?"

"She ran away!"

"And good for her too!" Jean shouted.

"Why did she run away?" Rose said, waving her hand at Jean.

"…I'm not sure," Sebastian said sulkily.

"Sweetie crumpet cakes," Jean said, kneeling before Eleanora, "why did you run away from the canned meat product? Surely there's a reason; yummy little muffins like yourself don't just run away for no reason…"

"I ran away because he killed my mother."

"You killed her _WHAT?!_ " Jean shouted at the phone.

"Hush Jean," Rose said. "Now, Sebastian: you killed her _WHAT?!_ "

"I might have removed her _cambionic vessel_ , yes."

"Who the ! cares if it's the cambionic vessel? I can't believe you killed the girl's mother!" Jean said.

"I'm inclined to agree," Rose said. "That was very horrible of you."

"Did you see the marks on her body?" Sebastian said coldly. "The vessel did that. I was merely protecting her."

"I never _asked_ him to!" Eleanora said.

"She never _asked_ you to!" Jean said.

" _Somebody_ had to protect her! If I hadn't gotten there in time…"

"But she was my _mother!_ "

"But she was her _mother_!"

"I will not be having this conversation right now!" Sebastian said. "Where is she? Are you at the city house? Wait there; I'll be there tomorrow…"

"I don't want him to come," Eleanora whimpered. "Please don't let him come!"

"She doesn't want you to come," Rose said. "Just stay there for the time being."

"But—"

"Sebastian," Rose said gently. "It's for the best. Just wait for a time."

Eleanora could hear him sigh on the other end.

"Fine," he said gloomily. "You know best, after all."

"That's right," Rose said. "Oh! Your father wants to say something—"

Jean was signing rapidly with his hands.

"He says that you're disowned."

He nodded, turned around, and then turned back. He blew a kiss towards Rose and made a heart.

"He says that he loves you very much and for you to be a good boy."

"I will," Sebastian said. "You'll take care of her, won't you? You'll protect her?"

"I shall watch her the way I watch a plate of frying bacon," Jean said grandly.

"Did you get that?"

"I got it," Sebastian sighed. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye, dearest," Rose said and hung up. Eleanora was deep in thought.

"Wait—So if you're _his_ mother, and if you're _his_ father…and assuming that I'm _his_ daughter…then that will make me…That will make you…"

"We're your grandparents dear," Rose said gently. "Your father's parents."

"But don't call me 'grandfather,'" Jean said. "I'm still too much of a sexy beefcake to take that name."


	35. Chapter 35

The Rega Rose Michaelis took the Lady Eleanora Michaelis to an out-of-the-way guestroom, so that the party wouldn't disturb her. The Regon Jean Michaelis, upon assuring himself that the girl was in good hands, made another phone call.

"Hello? Lutefisk?"

"Father?" Sebastian's voice sounded tired.

"Salo! Nice to hear your voice again. Listen, it's about the girl."

"How is she? Is she safe? Where is she? When can I see her?"

"She's as happy as a strawberry in whipped cream; she's perfectly safe; she's with your mother; and you shouldn't see her for a while; she's rightfully upset."

"She is _not_ rightfully upset. She should _not_ have run away."

"Oh, shut it, lentil seed; we've all run away from home once or five times in life."

"But—But I did her a _favor_! I killed her tormentor!"

"Sebastian," Jean said in a surprisingly gentle voice, "you're a father, and you're a father of a girl. And all fathers want to protect their children no matter what—believe me, I know. And all men want to be the hero to the damsel in distress—and fathers love taking this too far. Case in point."

"But I _helped_ her. What I did for her was _good_."

"And, just between you and me, I agree. I didn't know her, but what I gathered from the cupcake's blood—don't yell at me; you know I was going to bite her at some point—the woman was the bitchiest bitch-face that ever bitched a bitch. I agree that it's better that she's dead, but still: you shouldn't have killed the woman in front of your daughter."

"It was an emergency."

"You should have fought through the father-mentality and repressed your animal instincts and regained the presence of mind to kill her in a better time and place."

"She was _attacking_ _Eleanora_."

"That's no excuse. You should have defended the girl and then dragged the bitch off somewhere else to finish the job."

"But…Why doesn't she like me?" Sebastian couldn't restrain a small whimper. "Why isn't she thanking me?"

"Children are strange," Jean mused. "In some ways, they're smarter than us adults. And in some ways, they're much dumber. They feel more passionately than we do and they don't act rationally when it's good for them to do so."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm talking about the children who witness their adulterous assholes of a father cheat on their mothers—and they don't tell someone. I'm talking about the children who will do anything to prevent a divorce, the ones who want to keep the family together for as long as possible even when it's clear to an outsider that the family will be much better apart. I'm talking about the children who defend their parents to the death, even when the parents have almost caused their own."

"Please get to the point. It's late and I'm tired and I haven't been eating well."

" _WHAT?!_ You haven't been _EATING?!_...But I'll yell at you for that later. The point is, children do strange things when families are involved. You know, I know, everyone knows that the woman was a monster. But to sweet Eleanora, all that matters is that the woman was her mother—and you killed her."

"But…But…"

"Give it time," Jean said. "Eventually all of those children from those dysfunctional families realize that, in the long run, it was better for the family to fall apart than for it to stay together. Eleanora's a clever little fairy-cake—she'll figure it out much quicker than most human children will. So just give it time and eventually she'll discover—on her own—that it's better that the cambionic vessel is dead. Don't rush her and don't come over. I swear that the moment she realizes it, we'll tell you to come over."

"But I don't _want_ to wait."

"None of us do. Patience is not one of the unholy virtues. But sometimes, you just _have_ to wait. The instant I heard that Rose was pregnant, I just wanted to slash her open and remove the little bundle of joy at that very moment!—but I restrained myself, I had patience, and look what reward I got! A cute, darling little demon for a son and a sweet, intelligent vampire for a granddaughter. What more could I want? So sometimes, patience is necessary, for the greater good. For _all_ those involved. Understand, sweetie?"

"I understand," Sebastian said quietly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, what's all this about you not eating?"

"Goodness, just look at the time," Sebastian said quickly. "Well, it's getting late; got to run; big day tomorrow…"

"Why? What happens tomorrow?"

"Oh, just another case that the young brat and I are investigating. Something about a circus. I'll talk to you later!"

" _Don't hang up the phone you sneaky little piece of spam; it's time for your yearly nutrition lecture…"_

"Sorry! Busy!...Father?"

"Yes crumpet-cakes?"

"Take care of Eleanora for me," he said quietly.

"I'll guard her like my own," Jean said and hung up.


	36. Chapter 36

The week passed like a type of dream. Rose and Jean were very kind to Eleanora; they treated her as if she was their own daughter.

 _"This is what families are supposed to be like,"_ she thought every day upon seeing their happy faces in the morning.

Rose constantly fussed over Eleanora, the way a mother should. She began teaching Eleanora the scholarly arts: literature, architecture, music…But what Eleanora mostly liked to do was paint. Rose would frequently lecture her about something: Mozart, the importance of wearing shoes, Romanesque buildings, the way to successfully flip a pancake—and Eleanora would listen while painting. She could do wonderful portraits. She painted Rose and Jean and then Rose and Jean separately and she painted the Telstras and she painted the golems and one time she painted her mother. One time she tried to paint herself, only it took her three hours to realize that she was just staring at a blank canvas. Eleanora knew a long time ago that while other people were a delightful blend of smells and colors, she was just one big blank. She didn't like looking at herself in the mirror because all she would see was a black and white little girl staring back. The only thing that Eleanora could really learn about herself just by looking in a mirror was that her voice sounded like a church organ—she hated the sound.

She sometimes painted the Earl of Phantomhive and Madam Red and Grell and the servants and the dog and all the rest. She never painted the butler.

While Rose educated her in worldly matters, Jean taught her everything about being a vampire, a lesson that she had sorely needed. He took her down into the basement and they had a small wine tasting (wine, of course, being vampiric slang for "blood."). Eleanora was given blood to drink three meals a day and for snacks. She had never been so properly nourished before: she grew another foot and became stronger and healthier.

Jean also taught her how to fight. Eleanora knew how to fight; she had learned from experience; but Jean felt that that wasn't enough.

"Everything out there seems to have the bigger advantage," he told her during her first training lesson. "They're bigger than you; stronger than you; faster than you; tougher than you. But there's one thing that significantly weakens them:" here he leaned in closer to her, " _they're dumber than you._ And that's essentially the vampire's one asset: intelligence. You're a Special vampire, which means that you're the most powerful species out there—therefore the one with the greater intelligence. _Nothing_ is smarter than a Special vampire. So _use_ your intelligence. Let's fight."

Using intelligence was a lot harder than it sounded. Eleanora tried and failed many times to pin Jean to the floor.

"You're not using your brain!" he scolded her. "You're trying to use your strength, which you don't have. You're trying to use speed—which you don't have. You're trying to use _everything you don't have_! _Stop doing that_. Even an idiot understands that. Use what you have."

" _How_?" Eleanora said, frustrated.

"You can see things that others can't, right? You know things about people just by looking at them, right? So use that. Try to predict my moves before I make them. Use my strengths against me."

Eleanora tried, failed, tried again, failed again. She wasn't one to cry when thwarted, but she started hissing rather threateningly at him, which didn't impress Jean at all.

"Go again. Fight me."

Eleanora hissed and lunged at him. He prepared himself for a torso attack, but she ducked under the last second and slid between his legs. She kicked him in the back of the ankles and he started to fall…

Eleanora's senses sprang into action. She _knew_ where he was going to fall. She knew when he would fall and how much time she had and what he would be like when he would hit the ground. She rolled away just as Jean fell down and leapt up onto him, grinning triumphantly down at him.

Jean started laughing.

" _Good_! _Very_ nice! You failed for the first two hundred twenty billion times, but still, you're making progress!"

Eleanora began training with the golems. Rose and Jean had a staff of them that would assist around the house every now and then, and every day she would fight one. It began to get easier to use her intelligence to her advantage.

"Am I good?" she asked Jean once after she had fought a golem and won.

"You're _beginning_ to get good," Jean said approvingly. "With more practice you can be unbeatable."

"Could I ever beat you?"

"No. I'm too experienced for you."

"Could I ever beat the demon?"

She always referred to Sebastian as "the demon."

"No," Jean said. "You never will, and you should never strive to. It's wrong for a child to want to defeat their parent. Firstly, he's older and better at you in every way. Secondly, he's your father. Content yourself with beating everyone else. You'll be much happier that way."

He also taught her how to use various weapons and techniques.

"Everyone has a favorite weapon," he told her. "I, to choose an example completely and totally at random, love whips. Rose loves the martial arts: taekwondo, karate, origami, jiu jitsu, uh…other forms of jitsu…You know, the usual."

Jean trained Eleanora in all the weapons that he knew: maces, clubs, hammers, bows, crossbows…She decided that she preferred using swords and guns above all else, but Jean told her that it was important to be well-rounded.

"Just suppose you're locked in a room with only a lance? How are you planning on escaping if you don't know how to use it?"

He taught her about the unholy fires.

"Everyone can use fire," he told her. "Each fire has its own property. Sebastian's fire can burn. Rose's fire can heal. My fire can kill." To demonstrate, he snapped his fingers, sending a ball of bright green fair up into the air. "Everyone has their own fire. Show me yours."

It took a while for Eleanora to conjure her fire, but eventually she was able to spend up sparks of blue flame. Whatever it touched, it froze.

"Good! Use this to your advantage. The demons are cursed with a sense of justice and honesty—probably due to all those contracts they sign. We vampires are free from such boring mentalities. We have no qualms about cheating."

He demonstrated to her how unholy fire could be used as a weapon. He sent up bursts of green fire from his hands which he carefully molded until he was holding two whips.

"Try it."

All Eleanora could conjure was a small dagger and a bullet.

"Never mind; you'll get the hang of it eventually. Keep practicing and soon you'll be recreating the Leaning Tower of Pizza!"

"…I've never heard of such a place."

"Oh, well, it's something like that."

One day, Rose and Jean took her outside to teach her about mediums.

"Another perk of being unholy is that everyone can turn into some animal—just _one_ animal—and communicate with them. But demons cheat," Jean frowned at Rose. "They can turn into anything—living or nonliving; any animal, any object, take any form they wish."

Rose smirked and batted her eyelashes at him.

"But vampires cheat too," she said sweetly. "In the Beginning, the vampires struck a deal with the bats. Vampires have two mediums: the bats and their own personal animal."

"Yes, well, demons cheat more," Jean said sulkily. "Now, then, sugar cookie: what animal is your medium?"

"Oh, I don't know," Eleanora said. "I never really thought about it."

"Come, come; _everyone_ has a medium. Sebastian's medium is ravens…or crows. I always forget which. Kidding!" he added quickly upon seeing Rose's expression. "Of _course_ I know which one is his."

"Then what's _your_ medium?"

"Isn't it obvious? _Spiders_!"

Jean whirled around and transformed into some kind of monster. His face and torso was the same, but he had eight arms with eight fingers on each hand and eight legs balancing on feet with eight toes each.

"Aren't I _glorious_? And I can bite people too—spiders have venom, you know."

"Yes, and hairy legs," Rose said sourly.

"What's _your_ medium?" Eleanora asked her and Rose looked away.

"Oh, she's just upset," Jean said, turning back into his normal self. "Everyone assumes that such a pretty face will have a pretty medium, like a peacock or something. But no."

"What is it?"

"Rats," Jean said.

"Where?"

"No, that's her medium: rats. They can be very cute when they want to be, and are extremely intelligent…Personally, I think that it's nothing to be ashamed of." He placed his arm comfortingly around Rose's shoulders. She smiled at him weakly.

They took Eleanora to a zoo.

"Just wander around," they told her, "and find whatever animal speaks to you."

They walked around for a bit, stopping at every cage, waiting. Eleanora tried to listen, but she must have been doing something wrong because she couldn't understand a single word that the animals were saying.

They passed an employee who was demonstrating something with an Eastwest Python. Eleanora stopped to watch the show and then she heard something:

 _"Sssilly fool…Let me go…Ssso that I could ssstrangle you…And wrap you in my coilsss…Foreversss…"_

"Eleanora dear, don't run off like that," Rose scolded, running back to her. "What is it? Did you hear something?"

"The snake—The snake spoke."

"I'm not surprised," Jean said. "You always did have something of the serpentine about you."

Eleanora wasn't pleased to hear this and she showed it by hissing at him.

But her week wasn't all fun and games. One time she was dueling with a golem, as usual, when the golem darted behind her and slammed its hand in the back of her neck. Eleanora immediately blacked out, and when she woke up next, she was in the hospital with a splitting headache and tubes sticking out of her nose, mouth, and ears, feeding her blood back into her body.

"What happened?" she whispered. Rose was sitting next to her hospital bed, holding her hand. Jean was pacing around the room.

"It was my fault," he said. "I should've warned you."

"No, it's no one's fault," Rose said. "Eleanora, sweetheart, Jean told you that Special vampires are the smartest of all the unholy?"

"Y-Yes…"

"Unfortunately, that power comes at a price, as does everything. You see, the average human has about 100 billion nerves. You have _ten times that amount_ —and unlike a human's nerves, where they are linked to the brain in chains, _every nerve in your body is linked directly to the brain_. That's what gives you your synesthesia—that's what makes you so smart."

"It also makes your brain incredibly fragile," Jean said. "So many nerves can't be connected without a price. This is called the 'synesthetic attack.' It's when your brain overloads and essentially shuts itself down to repair itself. You must always take great care of your head and your neck. The doctor said that you were lucky this time, but you have centuries of cerebral damage. If you're very careful, your brain should slowly heal itself without any consequences to you. But if there's any more serious overloading, you could be in very big trouble."

Eleanora nodded and she was released from the hospital.

After a week of staying with Rose and Jean, she woke up one day with an epiphany. She went downstairs and was very quiet throughout breakfast.

"Good morning, bacon beautiful," Jean said when she had come downstairs. Whether he was talking to Eleanora or the plate of bacon in front of him was unknown.

"Darling, is there something wrong?" Rose asked. "You look so…sad."

"My mother wasn't a good mother, was she," Eleanora said.

"Well…no. No, she wasn't."

"And it's better that she's dead, isn't that right?"

"That's putting it so strongly, dear…"

"She never loved me. She never would love me. She would have killed me if given the chance."

"Eleanora…"

"I understand now," she said quietly and breakfast resumed normally.

After the meal, Rose called Sebastian.

"You can come for her now," she said quietly.


	37. Chapter 37

Eleanora had woken up a bit late and was trotting down the stairs of the huge Michaelis city home, wondering what she was going to do today. Naturally she would fight with the golems again—being very careful about her head and neck, of course; and practicing using weapons and unholy fire and all that—and she had wanted to get some painting done, but the rest of her day was free. Perhaps she would go to the library. The house had a large library, but Rose had assured her that it was nothing compared to the library at the _real_ Michaelis house. Eleanora had never been to the main Michaelis mansion, but Jean and Rose had promised her that one day they would take her there. They had already ordered construction on a new wing, especially for her! She couldn't wait to see it. For the first time in her life, she was actually looking forward to something.

She arrived at the first floor and turned a corner and froze.

The demon had arrived—that damned, dumb, dickless _demon_.

He was standing in the front hallway, kissing his parents in the usual unholy way: first a kiss on the left cheek, then a kiss on the right cheek, and finally a quick kiss on the lips. Rose held his face and kissed his forehead and muttered a quick protection spell, spitting three times over his right shoulder. Jean kissed him in the same manner, but instead of spitting and muttering, he swooped him off the ground and clenched him in a tight hug, sprouting more of his arms and hugging him all the more tighter.

The demon was set down, hands were shaken, and then he looked up and saw her.

" _Eleanora,"_ he breathed and tried to go to her only she turned and ran away.

"Don't take it so hard," Jean said. "Let her be for a while. Let her come to you."

Sebastian scowled at him.

"But you said that she was _ready_."

"We _said_ that she had dealt with her mother's death and had come to realize that her mother wasn't the most motherly person around and that it was safe for you to be in the house without getting bitten by a very upset vampire muffin. That's it. We never said that she would come running up to you with open arms and ready to be treated like foie gras. You have to _wait_."

"But I _can't_ wait."

"Sucks to be you, then," Jean said and waltzed off. Rose put her arm around Sebastian's shoulder and hugged him.

"I'm afraid that your father is—surprisingly—right," she said softly. "She needs time and space, and you have to give it to her. Just wait for a bit, and soon she'll warm up to you. Just give it time."

Sebastian hadn't wanted to give it time. He had wanted to come home and have her run up to him and kiss him and smile at him and call him "Daddy." _That's_ what he had wanted. And now he had to _wait_? He _hated_ waiting!

But his parents were right, as usual. He didn't see her for the rest of the day; she seemed to be purposefully avoiding him. He saw her at dinnertime, but she hadn't looked at him once.

"So, crumpet-cakes," Jean said, pouring himself and Eleanora some wine, "how's work going? How's the kid; how's the job; how's kicks?"

Sebastian then began telling numerous and humorous stories about what had happened while he and the young Master were investigating the circus, glancing continuously at Eleanora to see if she was amused.

She was not; her eyes never left her plate.

"By the way, how _is_ the young Lord?" Rose asked. "I had always felt an interest in meeting him. Why didn't you bring him?"

Sebastian shrugged.

"He's been having 'emotional issues' since we've finished with the case. Rather boring to think about."

"I remember I once had emotional issues," Jean said. "Worst two seconds of my life."

"Really? What solved them?"

"Your mother agreed to marry me," Jean said, winking, and kissed Rose's hand. She laughed and brought out a cake.

Eleanora had joined them in a round of cards. Jean had suggested strip poker, which Rose had quickly vetoed, so they were playing something far tamer. Jean had wanted to play for money, but Rose had said that that was illogical and promoted bad habits. Eleanora had fallen asleep sometime around their fiftieth game and Sebastian was allowed to carefully— _carefully_ , so as not to wake her—take her to her room and tuck her in and kiss her goodnight.

He hadn't actually been told to do the last two, but he figured that it didn't matter because he was her father and besides, she was asleep anyway.

"She's a cute little pudding cup, isn't she?" Jean said wistfully once Sebastian had returned. "Makes me want a girl of my own. We should've had more children after you."

"Nonsense," Rose said. "Suppose we had gotten another boy? You men have already driven me half-crazy with your antics; I don't have the patience for another one…"

"Buttercream!" Jean said, kissing her. "You don't mean that."

"But eventually I have to go back," Sebastian said, interrupting the moment. "The young Master gave me a week to go and retrieve Eleanora. How can I go back without her?"

"OOH! She can stay with us! We'll enroll her into a nice vampiric school; the best of the best; we'll feed her every day and she can live with us and we'll buy her all sorts of really nice things and we'll all be so happy together!" Jean turned to his wife excitedly. "Can we do it? Can we? Can we? Huh? Huh? Can we?"

"No," Rose said. "A daughter should be with her father. Grandparents can be nice substitutions for a while, but in the end, a daughter always goes back to her parents."

Jean sighed and glared at Sebastian.

"You pull any of this shit again, you cheap piece of vegan bacon," he growled, "and not only will I personally disown you, I will make you sure you _never_ see that girl again."

" _Jean_ ," Rose said. "He has learned his lesson. _Right_?" And she glared at him too. "No more of this running-away business. None of this killing people dear to her. You _must_ take care of her, and take care of her _properly_. You understand?"

"Yes Mother," Sebastian said. "I understand."

Rose smiled and dealt another hand for cards.

"There now! I'll talk to her tomorrow, and you can leave in a week, on schedule."

Jean looked stricken.

" _Leave_? In a _week_? But he just _got_ here! He can't just _leave_! And what about my sweet little creampuff? She can't leave yet! She's _family_!"

"But we can't stay here forever," Sebastian said. "I still have a contract."

Jean sniffed and wiped away bloody tears which were beginning to fall down his face.

"It's not _faaair_!" he bawled, grabbing Sebastian and smushing him in a hug. "You can't _leeeeave_! Don't _goooo_!"

"Aaand it's past your bedtime," Rose said, standing and dragging Jean out the door.

"It's ridiculous for a grown man to have a bedtime," Sebastian heard his father sulk. "I can make my own decisions, Rose."

"Says the man who tried to heat a doughnut using hairspray and a lighted match."

"It _would've_ worked if you hadn't put the fire out!"

A week later, Eleanora and Sebastian were on a train, heading back to Phantomhive. She still hadn't looked at him and had refused to acknowledge his presence, but he noticed that as the train was pulling out of the station, she sniffed and wiped her eyes as Rose and Jean disappeared into the distance.

"We'll come back," he told her. "Hell knows Father will be glad to see us again. And Mother will, of course, try to fatten us up; she'll say that we've lost weight." He sighed.

Eleanora blinked up at him tearily.

"R-Really?"

"Of course," Sebastian said, slinging his arm around her and pulling her close. "We'll spend Christmas with them. And summers. And vacations. And everything."

She sniffed and leaned into him.

"I would like that," she said and fell asleep.


	38. Chapter 38

Sebastian and Eleanora went to visit Agatha Brown's grave the day after they had returned to Phantomhive. Sebastian hadn't wanted to go, but he felt that it was necessary to be with Eleanora. If he hadn't gone, she probably would have (rightfully) assumed that he didn't feel guilty about killing her and would have run away again—maybe this time not to his parents' house, but someplace far more dangerous.

He had paid for a funeral and for a grave plot and even for a headstone, which he thought was far more than that woman deserved. If he could have it his way, he would have ordered the body to be burned with a bunch of trash and have the ashes dumped into the dirtiest part of the Thames. But no—he was nice about it all—and all for the sake of Eleanora. Parenting made demons go soft. He would have to make sure not to lose his edge.

It wasn't much of a headstone: it just had her name and a brief estimate of her years. Sebastian hadn't bothered to alter them. Someone who would have tried to do the math would have wondered if there truly was a centuries-old woman buried in a London graveyard named AGATHA BROWN.

They stood quietly for few minutes. Eleanora placed some roses on her cambionic vessel's grave. She didn't look sad: just blank and kind of tired. They left shortly afterwards.

"You're a very brave girl, Eleanora," Sebastian suddenly said. He didn't know what brought it on; he just felt like saying it. He gently touched her shoulders and she leaned into his legs, sighing heavily. "You really are, you know."

"I'm not brave," she said. "Shit happened and I dealt with it. That's not bravery. That's life."

Sebastian just smiled and picked her up, holding her close. Ah, she was still so thin. Her face still looked so unhappy. He could hardly bear it.

"Sweetheart?"

"Hm?"

"I would like to give you something."

"Something? Like what?" Her head bobbed up; her eyes gleamed. "Like dinner?"

"No, something bigger than dinner."

"Bigger than dinner?" She tried to think. "…Lunch?"

"Darling, would you like a present?"

"I'd rather have the present than the past, yes."

"No, I mean—like a gift. Would you like one?"

"A gift? What would I do with one?"

"Well, it depends on what you want."

"…I want dinner."

"Sweetheart," Sebastian sighed, "suppose you could have anything in this world—anything at all. What would you want?"

"Really? Anything I want?"

"Yes, anything. I'll get you anything you want."

"Then…" she looked up again, eyes shining, "can I have a puppy?"


	39. Chapter 39

"She's not my daughter," Sebastian said tearfully. "The doctors made a mistake. She's not my child. She can't be!"

"Now Sebastian," the Undertaker said, "calm down. You're overreacting, as usual. It's not as bad as that."

"She asked for a _puppy_. A _puppy_! She's not my child. She can't be!"

"Your father has a dog and you still acknowledge him as your father. Besides, it's good for vampires to have dogs. It's healthy."

"It is _not_. Dogs are _evil_. They _kill._ "

"So do vampires! Ah-ha, perfect match made!"

"But Eleanora is _cute_! She's _darling_! She's a sweet little hellion! She can't have a _dog_."

"And why not? You know that eventually she's going to need one. She's a Special vampire, if you'll recall."

"I'll get her a kitten," Sebastian said, completely ignoring what the Undertaker had just reminded him of. "I'll get her a little black kitten with charming blue eyes and we'll forget that this little incident ever happened."

"But she wanted a puppy."

"She doesn't _really_ want a puppy," Sebastian forced a laugh, "she just _thinks_ that she does. But she'll realize the errors of her ways once she sees her brand-new kitten."

"But you can't make a cat become a seeing-eye cat."

"Who says you can't? I'll write home and ask directly."

The Undertaker raised an eyebrow.

"I think it's a bad idea in every way," he said. "I think it's uncommonly selfish of you to deny the girl a dog. She wants a dog—so get her one! It'll be of use to her in more ways than one. She needs to get out more, have more fun—a puppy would help with that. She's a responsible person; she'll adjust to extra duties."

"But I—hate—dogs."

"But you love Eleanora, don't you?"

Sebastian stood up angrily.

"I will not have this conversation! I'm a busy man and I have to do many things! Goodbye!"

"Meaning that you know that I'm right, right?"

Sebastian made a very frustrated, angry sound and left.

Meanwhile, Eleanora was wandering around the Phantomhive grounds, singing softly to herself. The air was excited; it tingled in expectation and made Eleanora feel excited as well. Something was going to happen. Something was going to happen in—oh, let's see—about two minutes and five seconds.

Right on schedule, it started to rain.

Eleanora liked rain. Raindrops were always so cheerful. They sang as they went and splashed down. Eleanora quietly began singing their song:

 _"Life doesn't end; life continues and circles and cycles; let us sing for the joys of life!_

 _Let us fall down and land and soak and sing and let us sing for the joys of the ground!_

 _Let us dance in the sky and let us fall down, down, down; such a fun happy trip; let us sing for the joys of gravity!"_

Raindrops weren't the smartest things in the world, but it was always very cheering to hear them sing their little ridiculous happy songs.

There was a flash of lightning and then a rumble of thunder. Lighting itself was silent. It was silent and determined and purposeful; it had none of the silliness of the raindrops. The thunder was stubborn and always rumbled warnings, never anything good:

 _"Be careful, be careful, world; the lightning is coming; stay inside and don't laugh; never sing, for the lightning is coming; be afraid, be afraid of the lightning!"_

While meanwhile the raindrops were still laughing as they fell down.

 _"We care not for the lightning!"_ they sang. _"We do not fear it! It lights up the sky and it lights us all up and it warms us and makes us all tingly inside! Sing for the joys of the lightning!"_

The lightning flashed again, looking rather grim. Eleanora skipped away from the storm and took shelter in the nearby trees, listening to the raindrops.

 _"Here we go splashing, splashing, splashing while the thunder is a-crashing, crashing, crashing! How merrily it booms! Oh, sing for the joys of the thunder!"_

 _"Cold…"_

Eleanora jolted from her listening and looked around the woods. There was a small, weak, pathetic sound coming from the trees.

 _"It's cold…and it's wet…"_

Then they said something, something that doesn't have a word for itself in any language: it was one of the saddest sounds Eleanora had ever heard. It was of loneliness and how it wanted someone to love it and the despair that no one ever would find it and no one would ever love it. Eleanora felt a surge of pity. She knew that sound well. She had made it herself, in her saddest moments when she had been living with her mother.

She followed the sound into the woods while the thunder boomed and the raindrops sang.

" _NO._ "

"But—"

" _NO_."

"But, she's been so _good_ about everything," Sebastian said patiently. "Why _shouldn't_ she get a cat?"

"Because if she gets one, she'll want to lug it around everywhere and get cat hair on everything." Ciel scowled up at Sebastian. "And you _know_ how I feel about cats."

"But it'll be _good for her_."

"Get her a dog. A dog will be even better for her."

"If she wants a dog," Sebastian growled, "she can 'play' with the monstrosity outside. That'll be enough to cure anyone from wanting a dog. Besides, _I_ certainly won't get her one."

"But suppose she finds one? Suppose she finds a dog that she really, _really_ loves and wants to keep it? What will you do then?"

"I'll talk her out of it. She's such a sensible little girl; I'm sure that she'll see reason…"

" _MASTER_!"

Ciel and Sebastian jumped and whirled around. Eleanora had just burst into the room, soaking wet and absolutely glowing.

"Sweetheart! We were just talking about you," Sebastian said, walking over to her for a hug. He paused halfway through, frowning. She didn't smell…right…But that meant nothing… _right_?

"Young Master, I found the _cutest_ little thing outside and can't I keep it and I promise that I'll take _really_ good care of it and it will never bother you and can't I keep it oh please oh please oh please?"

"That depends," Ciel said, a little overwhelmed by her sudden flurry of words, "on what it is you found."

"If it's a cat you can keep it," Sebastian said, beating Ciel who had just been about to say the opposite. He shot a smirk at the frowning young Master.

" _Better_ than a cat! _Look_!" and she held up what looked to be a very grumpy black rat.

Sebastian felt very faint.

"Is that…That isn't…It can't…"

" _Look!_ " Eleanora said, cuddling the monster. "A _puppy_!"


	40. Chapter 40

The next minute was very confusing because so many things happened at once. Ciel howled with laughter and Sebastian howled with fear and Eleanora cuddled the dog closer to her and tried to say, "isn't it _cute_?" only she never actually got past "isn't it—" because Sebastian wrenched her away from the thing and pushed her behind him and got out his silverware, looking very threatening and defensive while the dog still looked very grumpy and wet.

"Did it bite you? Did it hurt you? Eleanora, are you alright?" Sebastian asked hurriedly, never taking his eyes off of the dog.

"No, he never hurt me," said a confused Eleanora. "He was very nice. Isn't he just _adorable_? Come here, boy!" She darted out from behind Sebastian and knelt down on the floor, holding her arms out. The puppy immediately changed; it barked excitedly and ran so fast to her that it tripped over itself once or twice and then it leapt into her arms and began licking her face as fast as it could, its little black tail wagging so hard that its whole lower half was swaying as well.

Sebastian looked faint. Faint and sick. Ciel wondered if he was going to really faint or throw up. But Sebastian did none of those things.

"Eleanora," he choked out, "put that thing outside immediately."

"Hm? But why?"

"Because…" he said and looked over at the young Master for help. Eleanora followed his eyes and stood up, holding the puppy.

" _Please_ , young Master!" Eleanora said. " _Please_! I'll take really good care of him! He'll never bother you, ever! _Please_?"

Ciel was temporarily at war with himself. On the one hand, allowing Eleanora to keep the dog would definitely infuriate Sebastian. On the other hand, an infuriated Sebastian would undoubtedly get his revenge somehow, like putting laxatives in tea or worse: quitting. He looked first from Eleanora and then to Sebastian and then back to Eleanora. She was smiling, eyes sparkling and begging. Sebastian kept on shaking his head. Eleanora was cuddling and kissing the black puppy; Sebastian had put his arms in an X.

"Young Master _, please_ ," Eleanora begged.

Sebastian made a slashing gesture over his throat, looking particularly murderous.

"Of _course_ you can keep it," Ciel said.

Now Sebastian was making several wild and jerky gestures, such as clutching his head and wringing his hands and making little strangled, furious sounds. Eleanora's face lit up and she ran over and kissed the young Master's cheek, which made Sebastian look even _more_ deadly.

"Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" she said, kissing the puppy again, which whined and tried licking her face again. "I'll take _such_ good care of him!"

"But keep him outside for tonight," Ciel said.

"What? Why?"

"He's a stray, isn't he?"

"Well…yes…"

"So he might have fleas or diseases or something. So just keep him outside for tonight and in the morning we'll call a vet and then he can be treated and then you can keep him inside."

Eleanora beamed and curtseyed and ran outside, still shouting out 'thank-yous!' Sebastian glared at Ciel, who shrugged back, trying to hide how terrified he was. An angry demon was not a demon one wanted to be around.

"This isn't over," Sebastian said coldly and left the room.


	41. Chapter 41

The vet came in the afternoon, as Ciel had said, and gave the dog various injections and a flea bath, all of which the dog suffered through patiently but seemed remarkably happy to have done with. Once the vet had finished, the dog leapt up and ran over to Eleanora, barking and wagging its tail with all the enthusiasm it had last night. Madam Red had been watching the scene; she 'aww'ed.

"How cute," she cooed. "They look so happy together."

Sebastian hated to admit it, but they really did. The dog looked much better than it had last night; its fur had dried out and had gotten all fluffy so it looked less like a grumpy rat and more like a salivating murderous ball of fur. Eleanora never stopped smiling once; she even laughed a couple of times. A bit of red appeared in her bloodless cheeks; she was running around with the dog in the sun and laughing and shouting for the dog, which always obediently ran after her.

"There's something familiar about that dog," Madam Red continued. "Have we seen it before?"

"It's a demon hound," Sebastian said dully. "The same thing as that white mutt."

" _Another_ demon hound? _Really_? I always thought that they were rather rare…"

"Sometimes they can appear," Sebastian shrugged. "It's not exactly uncommon to have unholy animals running around the human world."

Ciel wasn't there to enjoy the scene; someone had put laxatives in his tea and antidiarrheals in his morning slice of cake so he was having a rotten time in the necessary.

And so the dog Charon became a part of the Phantomhive family.

"But why Charon?" Madam Red asked Eleanora.

"Because we already have a dog named Pluto," Eleanora said. "So Pluto and Charon! It works!"

Charon was generally a very indifferent and cold dog. It didn't care much for anyone; it spent most of its time ignoring people—that or kind of growling at them. The only exception was Ciel; he would occasionally slip Charon some food from his plate and would take him out on walks if Eleanora was busy, so Charon would never growl at Ciel but still generally disregarding him.

But he absolutely adored Eleanora. Around other people he was as dignified and as stately as an old dog, but around Eleanora he was as sprightly and as affectionate as a puppy. He hated being parted from her for anything; he would whine and scratch at the door of the necessary whenever she had to use it. He would sleep on her bed at night and in the daytime he would follow her around, licking her hand and rubbing against her.

"I don't know why you hate that dog so much," Ciel told Sebastian. "He's like your twin."

Apparently Sebastian hadn't liked that comment, because in the morning, Ciel discovered that someone had put itching powder in his sheets.

But Charon and Sebastian really were almost identical. They both shared the same indifference to humans, they both ardently loved Eleanora, and they both abhorred the other.

Charon hated Sebastian just as much as Sebastian hated Charon. He would never allow the butler to get close to Eleanora; he would always growl and snap at his fingers. He never bit Eleanora, but if Eleanora hadn't cared about Sebastian, Charon wouldn't have hesitated to sink his teeth into Sebastian's throat. Likewise, if Eleanora hadn't loved Charon so much, Sebastian wouldn't have hesitated to go and drown the mutt in the Thames. The only thing that kept them both alive from each other was their mutual fondness for Eleanora.

Charon, like all demon dogs, could change his size and shape. Sometimes he walked around as a cute little puppy, sometimes he was the size of a Doberman, sometimes he walked around as large as a horse and Eleanora could ride on his back. Charon was always extraordinarily gentle with Eleanora, which only made Sebastian more irritated because the dog was always so evil to him. He fully expected the day that the vicious beast would bite off Eleanora's arm. But it never happened.

Eleanora was looking much better, much healthier. She was spending more time outside and running around with Charon, so her white skin didn't look _quite_ so deathly and she was almost always cheerful. Sebastian would have loved seeing his girl be so happy if her happiness didn't come from a dog and if he could actually get close to her. Charon never allowed him within a five-foot radius of his daughter. He hated the dog and he _especially_ hated the brat who had allowed the dog to stay.

Someone had put a bunch of ants in the sugar bowl and Ciel had accidently ingested some of them when he put some sugar in his tea.

"It's protein, my Lord," Sebastian growled when Ciel had complained. The Earl didn't dare to do any more complaining because Sebastian was walking around looking as if the slightest thing would cause him to burn the place down to the ground.

One night, he went upstairs to check on Eleanora, as he usually did. She was smiling in her sleep; Charon was lying on her; her hand was on his back. The dog looked up and growled softly once he had noticed Sebastian. He didn't dare to wake up Eleanora; he also knew about her insomnia.

"Shut up," Sebastian whispered fiercely at the dog and approached Eleanora. Charon growled again but didn't move. Nighttime was the only time when Sebastian could truly touch his daughter because Charon wouldn't dare to do anything that might wake her up.

Sebastian tucked the blankets up around her and replaced her fallen pillows on the bed. He placed them in the way that she always liked them to be: one pillow under her head and another carefully over her face. He kissed her forehead and then Charon growled and lunged at him.

Another characteristic that the butler and the dog shared was that they both got jealous quickly in regards to Eleanora. Sebastian had been caught unprepared but he was a demon and so recovered quickly and was able to punch the dog in the nose, deterring him.

"Shut up," Sebastian whispered again, looking nervously at Eleanora. She was still sleeping.

Charon growled again, fur bristling.

 _"Get out,"_ his eyes said.

"No," Sebastian whispered.

The dog growled and again lunged for him.

This time Sebastian was prepared and stepped aside. Charon changed direction at the last second but he still bounced off the bed and his claw scraped against the side…

Eleanora woke up with a "mm!" sound and looked around.

"Charon?" she said sleepily. "Sir? What's going on?"

Both the dog and the butler looked horrified. Eleanora looked down at her arm and realized that she had been scratched and was bleeding.

"Charon? Did you do this?" she asked.

The dog whimpered and lowered its head.

"It's fine," she mumbled. "It happens."

Then she fell back asleep.

Charon was absolutely horrified at what he had done. He couldn't even move, which allowed Sebastian to lunge for the dog and drag it outside.

"Get out," he said in a very cold, dangerous voice. "Get out and don't come back. _Monster_. You _hurt my daughter_."

 _"It was an accident,"_ the whimpering Charon thought. _"I didn't mean to do it."_

"Get out," Sebastian shouted and threw a broom at him. " _Get out!"_

The broom had been intended to scare him off, not to hit him, and Charon got the message. He scampered away from the manor with his tail in-between his legs, howling from misery.

Sebastian went back upstairs and bandaged up the still-sleeping Eleanora. He stayed with her all night, looking out the window and thinking murderous thoughts.

The dog hadn't returned in the morning. Eleanora spent the whole day searching for him and calling out his name. He never reappeared.

"Charon's gone," she said at the dinner table, in shock. "He ran away."

"Perhaps it's for the best," Sebastian said, giving her her dinner. "Look at your arm, dearest. Maybe it's better this way."

" _You_ never loved him," she said, glaring up at the butler. " _You_ always hated him. You're _glad_ that he's gone."

Sebastian shrugged and smiled. Eleanora was quite right: he _was_ glad that the dog was gone. He was ecstatic. He was so ecstatic that he had completely forgotten to wash the young Master's undergarments in poison ivy the way that he had planned.

But Eleanora was missing in the morning as well. She had left a little drawing on her bed which could be roughly translated to:

 _"I'm going to go and look for Charon."_


	42. Chapter 42

Eleanora spent the daylight hours wandering around the better parts of London, calling out for Charon. Whenever someone would stop and ask her what she was doing, she said that she was looking for her dog and ask if they had seen it: a black dog with crimson eyes. No one ever had.

The sun set and Eleanora moved into the worst parts of town. In retrospect, she thought that that hadn't been her brightest idea, but she was desperate and wasn't really thinking straight. A day of wandering around in the burning sunlight surrounded by people had started making her head hurt again.

The pain increased as she walked around the East End, calling out for Charon. People bumped into her and cursed at her and spat at her and the ones who couldn't walk grabbed her legs and begged for spare change. Her legs felt weak; her eyesight grew blurry; her nose began to bleed.

She felt so sick she had to stop and lean against a wall. But it turned out that the wall wasn't a wall; it was a door; and then someone slammed the door open, hitting the back of her head and sending her flying to the ground, which caused her to hit her head again.

For a few seconds, she thought that she was fine. Then she stood up and realized that she had no idea where she was.

Where were all the colors? Where were all the sounds? The music? The people who shoved by her and spat at her no longer had voices like instruments; their voices were coarse and ugly and actually had _words_ ; their voices no longer sang tunes and had notes that she could distinguish. She couldn't understand anything that they were saying.

And they were all so _ugly_! All of their colors stayed in one place instead of swirling around, the way that they were supposed to. And they all looked _exactly the same_ ; she couldn't tell things about them just by looking at them; all of their skin was white, their hair color was some dreadfully boring color, like blonde or brown; she was staring at a bunch of mysterious monsters and she _hated it_.

And then the reverse happened. Her synesthesia returned, but it returned so quickly and so intensely that she staggered from it. Scents stuffed up her nose; noises became loud and blended together in a frightening medley; she touched the wall again and was able to know everything about it: what it was made of, who had made it, when it was made, who had lived there, who had died there, through the years, passing passing passing, the knowledge was everywhere and it was killing her.

She screamed and ran away, far away from the people, far away from everything, trying to find her way out. She could, if she concentrated and tried to sort all of the information as best as it could as it attacked her.

But then she had to stop; she couldn't tell where she was anymore; her synesthesia had vanished again, leaving only the single-colored people who gave her odd looks and the air which smelled foul and that she couldn't understand.

She carefully crawled her way into the darkest, most abandoned corner she could find and stayed there for hours, shivering and crying from pain and fright. Her head hurt horribly; everything was bleeding; and she was unable to protect herself from the constant assaults on her senses: first the synesthesia was gone, then it returned with full force, and then it was gone again.

Who knew how long she would have sat there if something big and black hadn't come running up to her.

"No, no; go away; I'm scared; please go away…" she whispered. Her synesthesia was gone; her voice no longer sounded like an organ; it sounded small and pathetic and ugly.

But the big black thing didn't listen to her; it ran up to her and began sniffing her and licking her and whining. She recognized the whine…

"Charon?"

Charon barked and wagged his tail. He circled around her several times and licked her face, whimpering with joy.

"Good boy," she mumbled. "Good boy."

She didn't dare to put her arms around him or pet him or anything. She was in an upright fetal position and that seemed to be the smartest way to sit.

Charon whimpered and licked her face again; he barked in a friendly, comforting way, and then he ran off.

"Charon? No! Wait! Come back!"

She tried to crawl after him, only then the synesthesia returned and she was forced to sit back down with a cry.

Sebastian had been searching for Eleanora since the sun had gone down. He had assumed that she would return before nighttime, but several hours had passed and she still hadn't arrived, so he then assumed that she wouldn't go home until she had found the stupid thing.

"She's so stubborn," he sighed and entered the East End. "Eleanora? Lady? Eleanora!"

Pushing around an alone little girl is one thing, but pushing around a tall, displeased-looking man is another. No one bothered Sebastian as he wandered around the East End, calling for his little girl.

No one bothered him for several hours until a black dog with crimson eyes approached him, growling.

"Oh," Sebastian said, getting angry. " _You_. Well, what do _you_ want?"

Charon growled again and lunged for his hand. He bit down and started dragging him towards some direction.

Sebastian shoved him away and cradled his bleeding hand.

"What was _that_ for? Stupid mutt!"

But Charon was determined to give him a bad time; he growled again and darted behind him, snapping at his rear, forcing him to move forward.

"What on earth are you trying to do?"

Charon again bit his hand and tried dragging him.

"You want me to…follow you?"

Charon rolled his eyes, as if saying,

 _"Obviously."_

" _Fiiine_ ," Sebastian sighed, "but this better be worthwhile."

He followed the dog, feeling ridiculous, until he heard something whimpering. There was a little black, bleeding bundle lying on its side in a corner…Charon darted forwards and began licking the bundle, whining and gently pawing at it…

 _"Eleanora,"_ Sebastian gasped. "Oh, Lord, _Eleanora_ …"

He ran to her and the dog (surprisingly) stepped aside to let him kneel next to her. He gently turned her over…

She was bleeding profusely out of her mouth and her nose. Blood was leaking out of her ears. Her eyes had turned a horrible blood-color and they were weeping blood as well.

"Oh Lord," he whispered, cradling her in his arms, " _Eleanora…"_

It was a synesthetic attack; he had seen them before. He remembered his father telling him about them—he remembered his parents warning him about Eleanora; that the doctors said that she had centuries of damage and that if she wasn't careful, she could get a synesthetic attack. He had seen them before, but seeing one on his daughter made it far more horrifying than usual.

"Sweetheart," he murmured, gently tapping her cheeks, "darling, can you hear me? It's me—your father."

"S-Sir…?" Eleanora whispered. He hugged her.

"Oh, yes, darling; it's me; everything's going to be just fine; Daddy's here, darling…"

"I…I feel so…sick…"

"I know, pumpkin; but just hang on and we'll get you close and then we'll get you a doctor."

"What about…Charon…?"

"He's here," Sebastian said, glancing at the dog who was sitting demurely nearby. "He's here."

"Mmm…" Eleanora sighed and vomited blood all over him.

Sebastian carefully wrapped her head up in his coat. He smelled familiar to her, and familiar scents and tastes would ease her senses as well as block out everything else. Then he ran as fast as he could back to Phantomhive, Charon easily keeping up with him.


	43. Chapter 43

Eleanora hadn't woken up. The doctor said that this was normal; she was already beginning the process of healing her brain. For a demon, cerebral damage could be fixed in a few seconds. For a vampire, it took much longer, as it was far more intricate than a normal brain. The doctor said that he would expect her to wake up in about a week.

He said that she probably wouldn't need a synesthetic mask this time, as she was in Sebastian's room, lying on his bed. He figured that, as long as she was kept relatively isolated, the familiarity of the scents and tastes would help her rather than hurt her.

He praised Charon for his cleverness in finding Sebastian and asked if she and the dog were close.

"Yes," Sebastian said sadly. "Very close."

He recommended a place in the seventh level of Hell that trained seeing-eye dogs.

"Because you know, she's going to need one eventually. All vampires do."

Charon had spent all of his time lying on Sebastian's nice, clean bed, as if comforting Eleanora. He wanted to tell the dog not to bother, as she couldn't tell if he was there or not—meaning, _GET OUT OF MY ROOM_.

Charon always growled softly whenever Sebastian approached, but he never bit or tried to attack him. He also allowed him to get close to Eleanora. Sebastian spent most of his time sitting next to her, smoothing her hair and holding her hand. He knew that she wasn't able to detect his presence, but he couldn't help but hope that—somehow—she could somehow sense that he was there and be comforted by him.

He also hoped that she would wake up and realize how much she hated dogs, but that was second-tier.

He had made a phone call after the doctor had left, and the next day, the man who he had called had arrived.


	44. Chapter 44

Ciel Phantomhive was sitting outside, absentmindedly playing "fetch" with Pluto. There was nothing really for him to do inside; Sebastian was spending all of his time with Eleanora, so the mansion had abruptly gone to a standstill. No one dared to do anything without him around.

Ciel threw the stick and Pluto ran off after it, tripping over his own feet and making a big idiot out of himself in the process. He returned with a _different_ stick, looking tired but extremely pleased with himself, and Ciel threw the stick again. Again Pluto tried to run after it, but suddenly he stopped and began to growl.

"Pluto?"

Pluto was normally too friendly—or too stupid—to growl at anyone. He never growled unless something was seriously wrong. Ciel stood up and walked over to the demon hound and looked at what he was growling at.

A very tall, hooded man was approaching the mansion. He had a dog on a leash; that was what had made Charon start growling.

"Hey!" Ciel shouted to the man. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

His mind flashed back to the recent gassings of manors and felt a twinge of fear.

The man just kept on coming towards him.

"I _said_ ," Ciel repeated, trying to keep his voice steady and strong, "who are you?"

"I do beg your pardon, your Earlship," the man said, drawing closer. "I was asked to come here."

He had the same singsong voice as Eleanora—where every letter was assigned a note, and then each note was sung. As he approached, Ciel shivered. He was cold, like Eleanora. He smiled under his hood, revealing sparkling white fangs, just like Eleanora's.

"Who asked you to come?" Ciel put his hand on Pluto's back.

"Why, the little beefcake, of course," the man said. "Sweet little munchkin; sounded rather panicky on the phone…"

"Who are you?"

"Oh, he didn't tell you? Typical. He inherited that from me, of course; I never tell anyone anything if I can help it…"

"But who _are_ you?"

The man grinned and removed his hood, revealing unnaturally white skin and skeletal cheeks, with dark circles under his eyes, just like Eleanora's. He had piercing green eyes and medium-length black hair that was tied back with a bit of dull red ribbon. He looked vaguely familiar…

" _Sebastian?"_

" _Where_?" the man said, looking around. "…He's not here. Why'd you say his name?"

"Because…You look just like him…Your hair cut is the same…"

"Correction:" the man said, holding up a finger, " _he_ looks just like _me_."

"But…who _are_ you?"

"Regon Jean Michaelis," the man said, performing an exaggerated bow, "the father of your butler."

"Sebastian's… _father_? But Sebastian doesn't _have_ a father!"

"Well, if he didn't, he most certainly does now!" Jean said cheerfully, stepping past Ciel and Pluto and striding towards the manor. "By the way, what do you have to eat here?"

Sebastian was sitting by Eleanora. Her hand was resting on his leg. She was wincing and panting and every now and then crying out in pain. The doctor said that this was normal. This was her brain shutting down and then restarting again. Shut down, restart. Shut down, restart. Shut down, restart. It was frantically trying to repair itself, quickly healing any parts that it deemed more necessary than others. This caused it to get sluggish and tired and so it would slowly shut down…And then it would quickly send a shock through itself to get it started again…The whole process was extremely careful. Eleanora's nose and eyes wouldn't stop bleeding; she always coughed up blood.

There was a commotion outside; people were shouting and Sebastian heard Madam Red say,

"No, no; you can't go in there; the doctor said that she needs almost absolute isolation!"

" _Nonsense_ ; _everyone_ loves me!" someone else said and then Jean burst into the room. "Nobody panic; perfection has just arrived! How are you, fairy cakes?"

Sebastian rose up from his seat upon seeing the guest.

"Fa—"

Jean slung his arm around Sebastian's neck and kissed him full on the lips. Ciel and everyone else—who had been standing outside the room—were absolutely shocked.

"And _here's_ my sweet little pudding jam!" Jean said, releasing Sebastian and kissing the whimpering Eleanora on the forehead. "How _are_ you? Let me tell you, Rose was in _absolute_ hysterics when she heard the news; she _demanded_ that she come too and help out, but _I_ told her that there was absolutely _nothing_ to be worried about and she was probably going to drive everyone else absolutely crazy with her fretting and her insisting that we eat something! Now, I love eating as much as the next person, but there's a difference between _eating_ and being _forced to eat_. Isn't that right, cookie crumble cakes?"

Jean laughed and removed a tube from his pocket, with two syringes on each end.

"Now don't you worry; you'll be better in no time!" He sat down next to her on the bed and injected one syringe into his arm and the other into Eleanora's. He picked up her limp hand and began counting her pulse. "You know, I had the _hardest_ time getting over here; there was this really _stupid_ train conductor…"

"She can't hear you," Ciel interrupted. He was not liking Sebastian's father. "She's unconscious. The doctor said that she'll wake up in a week."

"But of _course_ she's unconscious!" Jean said, still in that annoyingly cheerful manner. "Her brain's deader than a corpse! But let me tell you something: if we're all happy, she'll sense it and be comforted! She won't be worrying about us all the time. Speaking of which, the air in this room smells absolutely _horrible_ ; _far_ too much gloom and doom; personally I blame your father; but…"

Charon, meanwhile was growling; his fur had started to rise. Jean glanced at him from the corners of his eye and his green eyes turned luminous while the pupils turned diamond-shaped…

Charon stopped growling and lay down on the bed, looking scared. Jean broke into a smile.

" _Such_ a little sweetie!" he cooed, rubbing Charon's head. "What's his name?"

"…It has a name?" Sebastian said.

Jean gave Sebastian a look and sighed.

"Canned whole chicken," he mumbled and then turned back to Eleanora. "Not to ruin your good daddy's name in your presence, devil cake; but sometimes he really _is_ a _complete_ canned whole chicken. Mystery-meat type man; _you_ know what I'm talking about," he whispered.

He spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening sitting on Eleanora's bed, having a cheerful conversation with her comatose, wailing body. He would use her pained screams to further himself along:

"And _then_ —now get this—she said that _I_ was the one who was going to jail! I mean, can you imagine the sheer _nerve_?"

" _AAAAAAAIIIIIOOOOUUUGHHH!"_

"I agree. It was tragic. But luckily, I _always_ make it a point to _never_ go anywhere without my lucky lampshade…"

It was past midnight and finally Jean stood up.

"Well, you take care of yourself, bonbon," he said cheerfully, removing the syringe from her body. "Get better soon! Your Granny and I—don't tell her I called her that—we'll be sending you lots of cards and toys and candy, and you'd better be awake to see them all!" He kissed her forehead and wrapped her blankets around her. "Sweet little éclair," he said and left the room. He whistled and his dog stood up from the corner, where it had been lying, and nudged Charon off the bed and out of the room.

"Thank you for coming over," Sebastian said, "but I called you to just collect the mutt and make sure it gets admitted into a good seeing-eye school. Maybe teach it some manners."

"That was my plan too," Jean said, "but I couldn't jolly well leave without seeing my favorite granddaughter, now could I? _Especially_ when she's in such difficulties. Besides, Rose told me to take care of her."

"You didn't have to give her so much blood."

"Ah, vampires have too much of it anyway. Losing a night's worth isn't going to kill me."

"Actually," Madam Red piped up, "it might. Losing so much blood in such a little amount of time isn't healthy."

"Honey ham," Jean said kindly, "the unholy produce five times more blood than a human has in their body every two seconds. I think I have more than enough to assist my little creampuff. Now, where am _I_ sleeping?"

"Oh," Ciel said weakly, "you're spending the night?"

"Of _course_ I am, giblet! You're a few nuts short of a pecan pie, aren't you?"

"I _beg_ your _pardon_ , sir!"

"No need to!" Jean said, opening up a door at random. "Ah, here we go!" He entered the room, followed by the two dogs, and leapt up onto the bed, not even bothering to remove his shoes, and started bouncing a bit on the mattress. "Well, come up here; Fluffy, Sebastian's Bestest Friend in the Whole Wide World!" Charon and Jean's dog obediently jumped up next to him on the bed, causing Sebastian and Ciel to shudder (the others were still in shock). Fluffy began licking Jean's face while Charon sulkily but quietly settled down at his feet. "You too, marshmallow cream."

"I…don't think so," Sebastian said, but Jean snapped his arm, sending a whip of green fire forward, which coiled around Sebastian's wrist and then yanked him onto the bed. " _UGH!_ Dogs; I'm going to reek of dogs; Fluffy, get _off_ …"

"Oh, calm down," Jean said. "He _likes_ you!...for some reason, given your history with him…"

"My Lord," Sebastian said, looking a bit ill, "save me."

" _Nonsense_ ; who needs to save a child from their own _father_? Who's the reaper?" Jean had been cuddling and tackling Sebastian by turns on the bed and had now looked up at Grell. "Pardon my French, but…hot _damn_! Are you single? Now _I'm_ married, but I know some _very_ attractive young doctors…What color is your hair? Pardon me; I can't see normally…"

"It's red," Grell squeaked, twisting a lock of the aforementioned hair around her finger.

"A _redhead_!" Jean said and stared down at Sebastian, who was still pinned underneath him. "Why haven't you married her yet? Redheads taste all _spicy_!"

Grell giggled nervously and Sebastian was about to say something when Jean gasped and pressed Sebastian to his chest.

" _Marriage_? Oh, no no no no _no_! You _can't_ get married; not even to a spicy redhead; who's going to take care of _me_? And your _mother_? And your little mushroom? Oh no! No, no; I'm sorry, but you're all going to have to leave now. No marriageable young bachelors _here_! Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. We all need our beauty sleep now!" Jean leapt off the bed and quickly pushed everyone out of the room, closing and locking the door behind them, leaving them all staring at each other.

"What just happened?" Madam Red finally asked.

"I don't know," Ciel growled, "but I hope that I _never_ have to see that man again."

"I liked him," Grell said.

There were crashing sounds inside the room. They could hear Sebastian shout:

"No! _No_!"

And then Jean's playful tone:

"Oh, come on; you don't want to take a bath with your old man? Male _bonding_! Your mother will be so _pleased_ with us!"

"No! I have _things to do_ ; I'm _busy_ ; I— _AAHH!_ "

*Ripping sounds*

 **Jean:** "Excuses, excuses!"

*More ripping sounds, followed by more screams from Sebastian*

 **Jean (cheerfully):** "Well, _that_ won't be mended anytime soon! And now that you're half-naked, it's the perfect time!"

 **Sebastian (icily):** " _No."_

 **Jean (still cheerfully):** "Oh, don't be such a processed pie! Now come _on_!"

 **Sebastian:** "No! _No!"_

*Screaming sounds fade and a door slams in the distance*

The ones outside shared another look until Madam Red clapped her hands together.

"Well now," she said in a happy, strained voice, "I think it's time for bed!"


	45. Chapter 45

Of course Sebastian ended up bathing with his father; once Jean got an idea in his mind, only he could change it again. Normally, Sebastian wouldn't have minded so much if Eleanora had been all nice and healthy.

"A bath will do you good," Jean said. "'Clean bodies make clean minds'. Unless you're doing something dirty," he said reflectively, "in that case, invite your father over and he'll bring the video camera."

Naturally, the bathtub was too big for two fully-grown men. Sebastian had tried to use this as another excuse to get out of it and go back to Eleanora, but Jean told him not to be so silly and flooded the bathroom.

Two hours later, Jean was sitting in the overflowing bathtub with Sebastian on the floor, waist-deep in water. Sebastian was musing over things, leaning against the tub.

"You okay, strawberry?" Jean asked, stroking his son's wet hair. "What are you thinking about?"

"Eleanora," Sebastian said. "I'm worried about her."

"I am too," Jean said. "But she seemed calmer when I left than when I had entered. You shouldn't be so worried—not in her presence, anyway. She needs to be surrounded by good scents and tastes: happiness, love, bacon…And you should get her a present before she wakes up. She's living like a nun. Scratch that; nuns get more things."

"The last time I got her something, I instantly regretted it."

"Correction: she _found_ something and you _grudgingly_ allowed her to keep it. She needs a _real_ gift. Get her a teddy bear. One of those huge teddy bears that fill up the whole room."

"I'll get her something," Sebastian promised.

"That's my boy," Jean said, looking down at his child affectionately. "Don't worry about her. She's a smart munchkin; she'll get through this." Then he splashed him with water and they got into a fight and made a big mess of the bathroom.

"Oh, I'll have to clean this up," Sebastian sighed.

"'Worry makes a man weak,'" Jean said. "You go and wash the soap off and get some rest."

"Goodnight, Father."

"Goodnight, my little lasagna."

In the morning, when Sebastian went to check up on his father, the bathroom was clean, the bed was made, and father and both dogs had vanished.


	46. Chapter 46

The first thought that came to her mind was, _"Who am I?"_

 _"Oh,"_ she realized half-a-second later, _"I'm me."_

 _"Where am I?"_

That question was less easily answered than the first one. Eleanora rose up and looked at her surroundings. She was in a very long, white hall, with five more other long white halls branching out of it. Either it wasn't a very well-made hall, or it was very old, because chunks of the white walls kept on falling off and rolling away, revealing a despairing black color. She slowly stood up (her legs were a little wobbly and her head felt funny) and approached one of the black holes. It pulsed and quivered at her touch. Every now and then it would stop moving, and then an electrical shock would course through it, jumpstarting it again. Every time the black would stop moving, Eleanora would feel a little foggy herself, and every time it started up again, she herself would feel more alert.

 _"You're looking at your own brain,"_ a small voice told her and she knew that it was true. _"But you're not really inside your own head,"_ the voice continued soothingly. _"You're just imagining it—thinking of yourself in your own brain will help you and retain your sanity."_

 _"Who are you?"_ she asked the voice. _"Where are you?"_

 _"I am your soul,"_ the voice answered back. _"I am everywhere within you."_

 _"That's a lie,"_ Eleanora said. " _If you were everywhere, a demon wouldn't be able to eat you."_ She thought of her own demonic father and felt a pang. He must be so sad—sad and worried. She didn't know how, but she could _feel_ his sadness and worrying. She wished that she could tell him that she was alright.

 _"Demons are able to collect the souls into a neat little ball and extract it,"_ her soul told her. _"But when we're not being eaten by demons, we are everywhere within you. We provide you your personality."_

 _"I thought the brain did that."_

 _"Your brain gives you your thought, but the soul gives you your personality."_

 _"If you're my soul, and I'm in my brain, then what am I?"_

 _"Of course, I'm not_ really _your soul,"_ her soul said, ignoring her question. _"I'm also a figment of your imagination."_

 _"Wait—you're a figment of my imagination…And me being in my brain is a figment of my imagination…And yet I'm going to help myself somehow?"_

 _"That's right."_

 _"That makes no sense."_

 _"So it's best not to think about it!"_

 _"I actually find this whole situation quite creepy. I wish that you would go away."_

 _"If you insist."_ Her soul sounded disappointed, but it went away all the same.

Eleanora was relieved. She didn't want to talk to her soul which really wasn't there while she was in her brain—which she wasn't really—then where the hell _was_ she?

Her head hurt, and surprisingly, not from the synesthesia. She decided to take her soul's advice and not think about it.

But there was still the issue of the long white hallways that were falling apart, revealing the black, squishy mass that was her brain. Bits of white rubble were lining the hallway that she was walking through; on a whim, she picked one up.

 _The lady leads us towards the black man. He looks sad and tired; he stands up to see us; there's defeat and sadness in his eyes; so much sadness…_

 _"Sir," the lady says, "she's made her decision."_

 _The man nods._

 _"I know."_

 _His voice is listless and dull._

 _"She hopes that you'll understand…"_

 _"I do."_

 _"She hopes that you won't be too upset with her…"_

 _"I'm not."_

 _"But she wants to go and stay with you again."_

 _He looks up in surprise and then stares down at us. We step forward and drop a curtsey. We are nervous. We don't want to go and live with the strange-smelling middle-classers. A familiar hell is better than a strange heaven. We want to go back and live with the black man, even if we do hate him._

 _"She wants to live with you again, if that's alright."_

 _"Al…right?" The man stammers, which is odd. He doesn't seem to be the stammering person; he must be really angry with us. "Th-That's more than alright! You really mean it? You really want to come with me?" This last is directed at us and we are confused. Isn't he angry? Does he really want us to come back and live with him?_

 _There is a shine in his eyes; he looks hopeful and—what is that other emotion?—happy. Yes, he looks happy._

 _We nod and he sighs, a blissful, relieved smile, which quickly turns into a smirk as he notices security escorting the unhappy middle-classers away._

 _"Here's her file," the woman says, handing some papers to the man. He nods and accepts them._

 _"Thank y—" he begins to say and stops. He looks at the papers in surprise and again we are nervous. Perhaps he has changed his mind? Perhaps there is something wrong? Perhaps he wants us to go away again?_

 _"Something wrong?" the lady asks and the man shakes his head and wakes up from his thoughts._

 _"N-No, nothing's wrong," he says and smiles down at us. "It's just perfect."_

Eleanora opened her eyes in shock. It was a memory; she knew that memory; it was when the butler had passed the tests at child services! But why was it _here_?

She vaguely realized that this hallway was the wrong place for this memory. She carefully touched the white wall of the hallway…

 _"Now pay attention," our great-great grandfather Asmodeus tells us. "I'm going to tell you what to do."_

Ah, this was all of her memories of Asmodeus. She was surprised that so many short memories could make for such a long hall. She wondered where this memory would go: would it be with the memories of the butler or with the memories of child services?

In any event, it wasn't worth worrying over—not right now, anyway. She began wandering around the falling-apart hallways, holding the piece of memory in her hands.

Time didn't work right in the brain, but she felt that she had been walking around for several hours before she suddenly got the urge to put the memory on a hallway wall.

She glanced at the wall; it had almost completely fallen apart, revealing the black, brainy mass behind it. She wasn't sure where her memory was supposed to go, or how she was going to stick it up to the brain. She knew that paintings in houses were hung up by nails and things, but firstly, she didn't have any nails, and secondly, she wasn't sure that it would be good for her brain to go on and stick a bunch of nails in it, even imaginary ones.

She pressed the memory into her brain and it stuck on its own.

The brain behind it began to quiver and then it started lurching around, pushing the memory into place on its own.

Then the memory started to glow. It lost its white and became a beautiful canvas of candy-red (love), ill-like grey and vomit green (fear), and a healthy dose of black (unholy).

The brain behind the fixed memory shivered again, only this time it looked a bit happier. Less scary. More healthy.

 _"This is what I have to do,"_ Eleanora realized as she looked at all the white rubble on the ground and the white halls with holes in them. _"I have to fix my own brain."_

She wasn't daunted by her task. On the contrary, she felt a surge of excitement. She picked up the closest piece of rubble and closed her eyes:

 _"We all make mistakes in life—everyone does."_

This was a memory of Madam Red. She set out to find the correct hallway, while the fixed memory was still cheerfully glowing with all of its colors behind her.


	47. Chapter 47

Eleanora woke up in Sebastian's room. She was wrapped up in a bunch of blankets, which made her feel very cozy but then quickly became very stuffy and hot. She kicked them aside and carefully sat up. Her head still hurt, but her mind felt clearer than it had in years. She wondered how long she had been unconscious.

There was a vase of flowers on the bedside table; they lightly perfumed the room and fought off the smell of sickness and sadness. There was a chair next to the bed; someone had put some things on it. Eleanora stretched her arms out and collected them:

The first thing was a big stuffed bunny toy. It wasn't very big; it was mostly very long; it was even taller than Eleanora. It was wrapped up in bandages and had a very scared, pathetic look in its eyes, as if it was sick and wanted to get better as quickly as possible. Eleanora looked around; there was no one in the room. She wondered who the bunny was for; it was incredibly cute.

Well, since there was no one around, no one would blame her if she held it for a bit, right? She cuddled it and looked at the other items:

There was a big, fancy box that smelled absolutely wonderful. It must have contained some sort of food. She set it aside; she wasn't very hungry at the moment; but she looked forward to discovering its contents. The last thing was a card. As usual, she couldn't read it, but it smelled like everyone in Phantomhive: the servants, the Earl, Madam Red, the butler…Everyone must have signed it.

 _"How nice,"_ she thought, settling back down into the bed, hugging the rabbit. _"They must have been thinking about me; I hope I haven't caused too much trouble and worry…"_

Sebastian entered her room several hours later; she was sleeping peacefully, with the rabbit in her arms and the note by her side.


	48. Chapter 48

"But I'm _fiiine_!"

"You are not," Sebastian said firmly, gently pressing Eleanora back down into the bed. "The doctor said that you need more time to recuperate…"

"The doctor also _said_ that my brain was fully repaired! Therefore, I'm _fine_!"

"You are _not_ ," he said, tucking in the blankets so tightly that she could barely wiggle around. "You need rest and relaxation and absolutely no excitement."

"But I've already _had_ rest and relaxation and all that and now I'm _bored_."

"Then go to sleep again," he said cheerfully, "and see how fast the time passes."

"But—"

"No 'buts,'" he said, pressing his finger on her lips. "Just rest."

He kissed her forehead and left the room, leaving her alone.

She squirmed around until she was able to free herself from the blankets and scowled at the door. It had been three days since she had woken up and she _still_ wasn't allowed to do _anything_.

Sebastian, in his typical overprotective coddling way, hadn't allowed her to get up from her bed except to use the necessary, and even _then_ she was carried to the bathroom and then carried back. She felt like a cripple and her legs were just _fine_! And the doctor had even said that her head was fine too! There was no reason for her to lie around anymore.

And the meals were horrible too. Eleanora hadn't eaten anything for a week; Sebastian had just been injecting nutrients into her arms all the time, and when she had regained consciousness, she had been _starving_. She had wanted all the goodies that she had missed: turkey and bacon and spaghetti and jam and all that…And the first meal that she had been presented with was _soup_.

And not just any soup! _Chicken_ soup. And normally that wouldn't have been so bad, only the butler had strained out all of the chicken and had purposefully over-boiled the vegetables so that what she was essentially eating was chicken-flavored water and some carrots that were so soft they weren't even worth chewing.

For breakfast, she was allowed some toast with a _smear_ of butter on it and some unnaturally sweet, weak tea. It was so sweet and weak and that she might as well have been drinking warm sugar water.

When she complained about the food, the butler just smiled in that infuriating way and said in that annoying, placid manner:

"But darling, it's not good for you to eat so much rich, heavy food, especially when you're recovering from an illness."

"To hell with illness! I'm _hungry_!"

"Dearest," he assured her, "once you're all better, I swear I'll make you everything you want."

"Really?" she beamed. "So does that mean tomorrow?"

"We'll see."

And it had been three _days_ and she was _still_ eating health filth! She knew that she was behaving a bit like a brat; after all, thousands of children out there weren't getting anything; and she was demanding the best when she should be grateful for what she was getting. But she couldn't help it! She was tired and fussy and hungry and full of life and energy and she wanted to _do_ things!

And she was still a bit upset at the butler because he had so easily allowed Charon to get taken away. At least he was with her grandparents, but she wished that she had been able to say goodbye to him and to tell him to be a good boy at his obedience school.

Eleanora finished freeing herself from the blankets and began skipping around the room. She knew that Sebastian would have several heart attacks if he knew that she was exercising, but it felt so _good_ to be able to move around! To feel her legs pumping! To feel her heart beat! To know that she was _alive_! She skipped and ran and tried a couple of acrobatic tricks and fell down a lot and had tons of fun when she heard the door knock.

"Lady? Sweetheart? Are you asleep?"

 _"Shit_ ," she whispered and scampered back into the butler's big bed. She quickly threw the blankets over herself and sat up, arms crossed, and again started scowling at the door.

Sebastian entered with a tray and smiled at her.

"Oh, you're awake. Did you sleep? Did I wake you?"

"I didn't sleep at all," she said, raising her head up.

Sebastian laughed and kissed her forehead.

Then he kissed it again.

And then again.

And then he pressed his hand against it.

"Eleanora," he said, unable to control his alarm, "you're sweating."

"Well, it's _hot_ with all these blankets," Eleanora said, irritably kicking them away.

"You've got a fever!"

"I do _not_!"

"Oh Lord," he whispered, wrapping her up in some more of those dratted blankets, "are you feeling alright? Does your stomach hurt? I knew I shouldn't have put butter on that toast…"

"No, no; I'm fine, I'm fine; I'm really just fine!" she said quickly. _"Save the butter, save the butter, save the butter!"_ she thought.

But the butler wasn't listening.

"I'll get a thermometer," he said. "And you just lie still and don't excite yourself. And stop kicking the blankets off!" he said, tucking her in again. "You need as much warmth as you can get."

"But it's _haaaawwwttt_ …" she moaned but he had disappeared again.

He returned several minutes later with a thermometer and several bottles of medicine.

 _"Oh no…"_ she thought, her stomach filling with dread. _"Oh, no no no no no…"_

"Here, open your mouth," Sebastian said, holding the thermometer out.

Eleanora had absolutely no intention of letting that thing get anywhere near her, and she was just about to tell him so when he popped it into her open mouth and closed her jaw shut.

"There now!" he said. "Now you just lie there all nice and quiet for a time and let it take your temperature."

Eleanora began swearing at him through her closed mouth, which didn't make her swears very effective.

Sebastian measured her pulse and felt her stomach and listened to her breathing.

"Maybe I should call the doctor again…" he murmured. Eleanora shook her head rapidly.

"Mm _mmmm_!" she said, meaning "I'm _fine_!"

Five agonizing minutes passed and he removed the thermometer.

"13 degrees C," he said, sounding disappointed. "So I suppose that you don't have a fever…"

"That's right; I don't. I feel fine. Just dandy. Can I get up now?"

" _No_!" he sounded absolutely shocked. "The very idea! You just almost suffered a relapse!"

"I almost what a _whatta_?"

"Maybe I _will_ call the doctor," he said to himself. "This can't possibly be healthy."

" _NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO!"_ Eleanora shouted. "I'm _fine_! _Really_! I feel better than I've ever been in _years_! There's no need to bother the doctor."

"Well…if you're sure…" He sounded hesitant.

"Oh, I've never been surer of anything!"

"Well…Alright then," he said and kissed her forehead. "You just rest up, now."

"If I do, will you pronounce me healthy tomorrow?"

"We'll see," he said and left the room.

The next morning, she was given toast without butter and wasn't allowed to get up for another week.


	49. Chapter 49

Eleanora was in the kitchen, humming to herself. It had been a horrible three weeks—the first with her coma, the second and the third ones being forced to recover—but now it was all over and she was allowed to get up and walk around and work again. Oh, it was glorious to be alive.

She was about to go and wash the dishes when she paused. There was someone—no, two someones—outside the kitchen door. She registered this a few seconds before the door was cut open and two men strode in, as if they owned the place.

"I'm coming in!" someone said—someone who's voice sounded cold and metallic…like a triangle instrument. "Is Earl Phantomhive in?"

"Who wants to know?" Eleanora asked, glaring at them. The one in the front was the one who had spoken; the one behind him seemed a bit warmer than the first one, albeit still very cold.

"Don't play games with me, little girl," Triangle-Voice said. "You're going to lose. Now, where is the Earl Phantomhive?"

"You're Charles," Eleanora said. "You're the Queen's butler."

The smell of surprise glided out of his skin, just like with his name and occupation.

"How did you know that? Who are you?"

"You have a message from the Queen," Eleanora continued. "You're here about…let's see…some kind of…party?"

The man in the back smelled a little impressed, but there was a wave of fear from the metallic one and Eleanora just had time to think _"oh shit"_ when he attacked.

She dodged just in time and saw his sword slice through the air as he tried to attack again. Plan, plan; she needed a plan; she needed to escape; she needed to fight…

Time slowed down and she knew what she had to do. She knew what the man's next move would be; where his sword would go; how his sword would slash; all of his weak points; so defenseless…She suddenly knew everything; her senses came alive; there was a flash of blue fire and then he was on the floor, with his sword in her hand and both of them—her sword and his—pointed at his throat.

The man gasped; his skin turned both savage and scared—a delightful combination. Eleanora licked her lips. She wondered what his blood would taste like…

"Eleanora," someone said behind her. "Get off of him."

Damn, the butler. And she had been having so much fun…She obediently got off the man but didn't give back his sword.

The man staggered to his feet, spluttering with rage.

"You—How did you—But I—But I'm—"

"Please pardon our maid," Sebastian said to the man, bowing low to him. "But she acted in self-defense. May I ask why you are here?"

"We must see the Earl of Phantomhive," the other man said, stepping forward and speaking for the first time. His voice—surprisingly—sounded rather nice, a bit like a drum. "We have to speak with him."

Sebastian bowed again.

"Certainly. If you'd follow me, please, gentlemen. Eleanora, clean up this mess," he called over his shoulder and left with the two men.

Eleanora mechanically began clearing the kitchen. She wasn't upset. On the contrary, she was exhilarated. She had never felt so alive, so…so… _Eleanora_. Her vampire instincts had _finally_ kicked in and she _loved_ it. She wanted blood. She wanted to drink it and she wanted to know everything and she wanted to fight and she wanted to _live_. Living with her mother wasn't life. Being a maid at Phantomhive wasn't life. Even living with her grandparents and fighting golems every day wasn't life! _This_ was life. Being a vampire was life.

She grinned at the sword, the sword that she had magically created out of her blue fire. It was _her_ sword. She smirked at the other sword, the sword that she had collected from that man. This was her sword as well; it was a spoil of battle that she had won. She had never been so proud of herself. She couldn't wait to tell the butler about her awakening. She couldn't wait to tell him that she was finally— _finally_ —a real unholy.

But all that could wait until later. There would always be plenty of time to talk with him. She licked her teeth—ah, those beautiful fangs!—and finished cleaning the kitchen.

 _"Yes,"_ she thought, _"I can always talk with him. It's not as if he's going anywhere."_


	50. Chapter 50

As Eleanora had said, the two men were here to discuss a party with the Earl of Phantomhive. They talked about it and then they left and then the butler entered the kitchen and told everyone about it. The week was spent preparing for the party, so everyone was rather busy; and in the evening, everyone was too tired to do much of anything except go to sleep. But one night, Eleanora managed to sneak into Sebastian's room and told him about when she had attacked Charles. She told him about how she knew where to attack and how to attack and how, once it was all over, she had thirsted for his blood and how she was able to tell almost everything about him just by looking at him.

Sebastian had been incredibly impressed. She could tell. He smiled and kissed her and told her that she was a good girl and that everything that had happened so far was great, but she always had to be careful about her head and neck.

"I will," she said. He picked her up and they lay down in his bed, him cuddling her and kissing her forehead every now and then.

"Lady," he said, "I have to tell you something. Every time you drink someone's blood, you'll know _everything_ about them, and I do mean _everything_. And now that your brain is fully healed, you're smarter than you were before—you'll be able to learn most things about a person just by looking at them: their name, how old they are, when and how they died…" He trailed off and bit his pinkie, looking away.

"Why would I have to know when and how someone died? No one is going to die recently, right?"

"Of course not," he said quickly. "It's just something to be aware of." He forced a laugh and held her closer.

"But will I _really_ know _everything_ if I drink some of their blood?"

"Of course," Sebastian said. "Would you like to try it?"

"How?" she asked, getting excited.

Sebastian unbuttoned his shirt a bit and pulled one sleeve down, exposing his shoulder.

"Go on," he said. "Try biting me."

Eleanora hesitated, but moved closer, wondering what she was supposed to do. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. She could _hear_ it. She could actually hear his blood whooshing around in his veins! It was a beautiful sound—a wonderful, healthy sound. She opened up her mouth and extended her fangs and rested them where she heard his blood. They quivered in anticipation, but Eleanora knew, just by feeling his skin with her teeth, that something was wrong.

 _"Not here,"_ she thought. _"Here will make all of his blood spill out."_

She moved her teeth and found another area.

 _"Not here; too little blood."_

Again she moved her fangs.

 _"Perfect!"_

She hesitated for a bit, but before she could rethink it all, she plunged her teeth into his neck. They went in easily, as if she was biting half-melted butter.

Sebastian twitched and made a "mm!" sound, but didn't push her back or wince in pain. He watched his daughter as she discovered herself, smiling at her surprise and intensity.

The blood gushing through his veins began seeping into her teeth, but she realized that that wasn't enough. She sucked once and the blood entered her teeth, running down her throat and entering her stomach. Her eyes popped open and some blood landed on her tongue and then she knew _everything_.

His birth, his life, his masters, his loves, his hates, his fears, his hopes, his dreams; she knew _everything_ and his blood tasted absolutely _delicious_. It tasted like red hard candy and sweet syrup; it tasted of love.

Eleanora pulled back and realized that he was bleeding out of the two puncture holes in his neck. She leaned in and licked the wound on a whim; her saliva tasted a bit acidic, but when she pulled back, instead of blood there were two bruises on his neck.

Sebastian whistled, impressed.

" _Very_ nice," he said. "And you can do that with everyone, darling. Not just me."

"But…how did it stop bleeding?"

"Special Vampires have various types of saliva—some for healing, some for poisoning, and so on. My father has it too. You just instinctively used your healing saliva and the skin healed over the wounds."

"I can do that? _Really_?"

"Of course!" he said, pulling his shirt back on and cuddling her. "But you must be very careful, sweetheart. If you're not careful, you might bite someone out of self-defense, and then your poison would kill them."

"I'll be super careful," she promised. "I won't bite anyone."

"There's my sweet, good girl," he said and kissed her again.

She fell asleep in his arms and he watched her smiling in her sleep, thinking about tomorrow.

For the real party would start tomorrow.


	51. Chapter 51

Eleanora hadn't been allowed to attend the party; everyone thought that she was too young. All of the guests would look at her and wonder who's kid she was, even more so when they saw her offering wine glasses. So she stayed in the kitchen and drew.

Sebastian had suddenly remembered that while he was away at the party, something would have to entertain his little girl so she wouldn't be tempted to go poking around where she shouldn't. So in a very quick decision, he gave her one of the young Master's drawing pads and several pencils and told her to go nuts.

Well, he didn't use the _exact_ phrase "go nuts" but that was the idea that Eleanora got.

For a while, she debated about what she should draw, but then, suddenly—magically—an idea came to her. She would draw Charon!

She was so absorbed in her work that she didn't even notice Sebastian run down to the kitchen several times to get more things for the party upstairs. He peeked over her shoulder once or twice as she worked:

 _"What is that,"_ he thought, _"a monster?"_

 _"Oh no; it's just the mutt,"_ he realized, _"so I was correct."_

She was so intently drawing as the evening passed on that once the sketch was finished, she suddenly felt very, very tired. She smiled down at her work—she thought it was a good likeness. She wondered when the butler would come downstairs and rested her head on the table. In seconds she was asleep.

She woke up to someone screaming. For some reason, she was upstairs in her bed, her brand-new stuffed bunny tucked securely under her arm. This was very odd; she could have sworn that she had been at the kitchen table, but the room smelled of love and evil, which meant that the butler had found her and had taken her upstairs and tucked her in.

But never mind that now; she opened the door and the cold smell of fear washed over her. She closed her eyes and the scent made a path in her mind's eye, showing her where the main source of fear was from. She opened her eyes and ran downstairs to the servants' quarters, upstairs to the mansion, and then down several halls until she burst into a bedroom.

There were several people in the room, each one with their own personalities and characteristics that overwhelmed her and made her swoon. There was one very familiar form in the confusion: the butler.

"Eleanora," he said, turning to her, "you shouldn't be here."

"What is it?" she asked, completely ignoring him. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," he said, trying to usher her out. "You shouldn't be seeing this."

She ducked under his arm and entered the middle of the room, looking around for whatever was making everyone else so afraid. He tried to grab her and carry her out, but by then it was too late.

She had already seen the dead body.


	52. Chapter 52

To be fair, it wasn't much of a dead body. Eleanora had seen dead bodies before, and this seemed to be a pretty lame dead body, as far as dead bodies go. In fact, she wasn't even sure that it even _was_ a dead body. She was about to explore this further when the butler suddenly snatched her up and lugged her out of the room.

She was deposited in the kitchen, mostly because she was wriggling around too much for him to safely carry her upstairs to her room, the way he had wanted to.

"What was _that_?" she demanded as soon as her feet were on the ground.

Sebastian sighed and passed his hand over his eyes.

"That," he said, "was the corpse of Georg von Siemens, who has just recently and tragically passed away."

"I didn't mean _that_ ; anyone with half a brain can see that he wasn't really dead; I _meant_ you throwing me about everywhere like a sack of potatoes! No, scratch that, a sack of potatoes would be treated with more _respect_!"

Sebastian couldn't help but smile down at her scowling face; she seemed genuinely offended.

"Darling thing," he said, kneeling before her and nuzzling her nose with his, " _everyone_ respects you."

" _You_ don't."

"That's because I'm your _father_. You get a different kind of respect from me."

She was sorely tempted to refute this so-called fatherly "respect" but was interrupted by the arrival of the young Master.

" _What_ was that last thing you said, Lady?"

"What—potatoes?"

"No—about how he wasn't really dead?"

"Well, I mean, _obviously_."

"You mean you could tell that he wasn't dead?" Ciel was getting excited.

"Naturally."

"You mean—and let me get this straight—that Georg von Siemens wasn't _dead_?"

"No, he was still alive—but barely."

"So…he's… _almost_ dead?"

"Well, he will be until he wakes up."

"Wakes up? Wakes up from what?"

"Oh, honestly; I don't know; there were too many people in that room for me to make it out clearly!" She scowled at him and stuck her lower lip out in defiance, causing Sebastian to smile down at her again and pick her up.

"Really, my Lord, someone's murder—or lack thereof—is no topic of conversation that a sweet little girl should hear."

Eleanora looked around for this "sweet little girl;" there didn't seem to be any in the vicinity. Maybe one was hiding in a cupboard somewhere.

"But Sebastian," Ciel said, barely able to control his enthusiasm, "don't you see? She could _help_!"

"She can do nothing of the sort," the butler said, holding his daughter in a fiercely protective way. "She's an innocent darling child and far too young for such macabre matters."

"Sebastian," Ciel rolled his eyes, "you realize that she's spent most of her life living in _absolute poverty_?"

"Shh! Don't remind her of such traumatic events!"

Eleanora was now being squished and tried protesting. She wanted to say that she had seen things far worse than not-even-dead-people in a manor in the middle of a thunderstorm and so was perfectly capable of helping, but what mostly came out was a "mmmmmmmm" sound.

"See! Now you've gone and traumatized the poor dear."

Eleanora had never wanted to bite someone so badly, especially when, despite all of her muffled protests and wriggles, she was carried back upstairs and again unceremoniously dumped into her bed, where the butler then quickly tucked the blankets around her so tight that she could barely move. That seemed to be a specialty of his.

After making sure that his daughter wouldn't be getting out of the blankets any time soon, Sebastian said down next to her on the bed and absentmindedly gave her the bunny.

"Lady," he said in a surprisingly firm voice. She stopped squirming and looked up at him expectantly. This was new to him; apparently she reacted better to authority and reason than to fawning. He wasn't sure he liked it; he made a note to fawn over her tenfold once all this messy business was over with. But that didn't matter at the moment; right now he had to make several things clear to her.

"Lady," he repeated, "this incident might be repeated. As of the moment, we don't know who did it or why, but whatever happens, you must not get involved."

"But why not?"

"Because you're just a small girl," he said, smoothing her hair back. "I admit that you've improved greatly in your strength and your health and your fighting abilities, but you're still just a little child who is not yet fully capable of defending herself properly. Someone could attack you unawares, or when you're asleep. Your brain is indeed fully healed, but you still haven't properly grasped the power—and limitations—of your senses."

"'Limitations?' What limitations?"

"You noticed it just now: there were too many people in that room and that confused your senses and you weren't able to focus on one thing. Also, if one particular thing clouds just one of your senses, that might throw your whole body off-balance. You have to be _careful_." He paused, thinking. "I have no doubts that one day, you'll be an excellent asset, capable of solving any mystery that comes your way. But for now, please stay out of it. You will, won't you? For me?" He smiled at her.

If he had just said, "stay out of it," she naturally would have done everything in her power to stay in it. But because he had said precisely _why_ she had to stay out of it, she decided to do it. She also knew of her limitations—he was right, she had no idea what could send her brain spiraling off into unconsciousness again.

"I'll stay out of it," she promised. He beamed down at her and kissed her forehead.

"That's my sweet, good girl," he said. He turned to leave, but paused at the door and turned back to look at her. "Eleanora?"

"Hm?"

"I know I don't say it very often, but you do know that I love you, right?"

Eleanora looked at him in shock. He was right that he didn't say it very often; in fact, she was pretty sure that this was the first time she had ever heard him say it.

"I…know that," she said hesitantly.

"And you know that I only wish for your happiness and safety?"

"Y-Yes…"

"And that I wouldn't give you up for anything in the world?"

" _Really_?" This was a new development; she actually had to sit up for this new thought. "Not even for…for…for all the tea in China?"

"Not for all the tea in China."

"Not for all the pasta in Italy?"

"Not even for all the pasta in Italy."

"Not even…not even…" here her mind strained to come up with something big—something really, really big, something bigger than she had ever dared to dream before! "Not even…for all the money in the world that is now, that has been, and will ever be?"

Sebastian laughed, strode over, and kissed her forehead.

"Not even for all the money in the world that is now, that has been, and will ever be."

"Wow…" Eleanora said, seeing the world in a whole new light, "I had no idea that I was so…so… _expensive_."

Sebastian laughed and kissed her again and then left the room. Eleanora settled down in her blankets and cuddled her rabbit closer to her. She was expensive. No, she was _priceless_. Well, at least to one person. But one person was enough. She felt her eyes closing; the smell of fear had vanished under the scent of sleep; her last conscious thought was that it was rather nice to be so precious to someone—she had never been precious before. It was a wonderful feeling. She was unnaturally grateful to the demon—she couldn't wait to see him again, and then feel just as precious and as priceless as she did now. She smiled and then she was asleep.

The young Master was waiting for Sebastian in the kitchen; he rose up when the butler entered.

"Sebastian, you know that Eleanora with her synesthesia could really help us with this horrible mess…"

There was an animal-like growl and Sebastian suddenly had Ciel by the throat.

 ** _"You will not involve her in any way,"_** he said in a horrible, demonic voice. Ciel weakly nodded and Sebastian released him.

"I dare say it's time for you to retire, now, young Master," he said. "Remember that you are placed in constant watch."


	53. Chapter 53

Eleanora woke up to the feeling that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. She looked out the window; it was far too late; someone had let her sleep in. Who was it? The butler? Undoubtedly it was just the butler. So then why did she have this feeling of foreboding? As if something truly terrible had happened while she was asleep.

She quickly got up and got dressed and went downstairs. The farther she went, the more the fearful feeling in her stomach increased. The whole house smelled of sorrow—sorrow and confusion and horror. And where was the butler? Normally he would be out looking for her by now…

Her speed increased. She couldn't sense the butler anywhere.

She turned the corner and crashed into someone. Someone who smelled of absolute panic.

The panic was infectious; she didn't think; she just reacted; before she knew what had happened, she retracted her fangs and was continuing her mad dash through the halls, the bitten one running in the opposite direction she was going.

She found the room, the source of all the fearful smells, and threw open the door.

Everyone was there. The gardener and the maid were crying. Everyone else looked either horrified or scared. The young Master was still in his nightshirt; he looked up upon seeing her.

"Eleanora," he said, "you shouldn't be here."

"Why not?" she asked, entering the room. "What is it? What's going on? Where's the—"

The butler was lying on the ground. He looked as if he was sleeping, only his eyes and mouth were open and he was not looking happy.

"S-Sir?" she asked, approaching him. "Sir? Are you alright? Is everything al…"

There was a horrible stench and she recoiled from him, pressing her hand over her nostrils.

"S-Sir?" she squeaked. "Sir? Mr. Michaelis?"

She approached him again, trying vainly to ignore the smell. It overpowered everything; she couldn't even tell what was wrong with him.

"Sir? Are you alright? Sir?"

She knelt down next to him and gently touched his shoulder.

"Sir? Are you alright? Please wake up. Sir?"

She began shaking his shoulder.

"Sir? Please get up. Please, sir. Please. Sir, I'm scared. Please wake up. Please get up now."

The servants began crying again; even the young Master looked away. She was beginning to get frightened; she was so confused and the smell was so dreadful and she _really_ wanted him to get up and hold her and tell her how special she was to him.

"Sir? Please get up. Please get up now! _Sir_!"

She began screaming and furiously shaking him, trying to get him to wake up, to move, to do really anything, and all he did was flop around and be silent. He didn't make a sound. He didn't even blink.

And Eleanora kept screaming and begging for him to wake up and it didn't work and didn't work and didn't work and suddenly someone put a hand on her shoulder.

"Eleanora," Ciel said, "enough. I've already tried." He took a deep breath and looked away. "He's dead."

"He's… _dead_?" she gasped. "No, no; that can't be; it's not true; he's alive he's alive he's _alive_!" She turned to the butler and shook him a bit more. "Tell him that you're alive; tell them all that you're alive; get up and say that you're alive!"

Now even some of the guests were looking a bit teary.

"Wake up," she whispered, her strength leaving her. "Please wake up…"

She curled up by the butler's side—his body usually so nice and warm, now freezing and covered in that ghastly smell—and she wept tears of blood, as if she had never cried before.


	54. Chapter 54

Eleanora was taken away by the servants to get a clean change of clothes. Meanwhile, the Earl and his guests sat in the drawing room, discussing things.

"By the by, who _was_ that little girl?" Earl Grey asked, yawning.

"Her name is Eleanora," Ciel said, drinking his tea calmly, as if his butler hadn't just died in the middle of the night. "Sebastian was her father."

"Her… _father_?" the wordsmith said. "He had a…a _daughter_?"

"Rather naughty, don't you think?" Earl Grey said.

"Where's her mother? What happened to her?"

The guests all shared looks, recalling the maid.

"She's dead," Ciel said shortly. "She wasn't much of a mother anyway. Small loss, good riddance kind of thing."

"She mentioned a smell as she was leaving," the wordsmith suddenly remembered. "Does anyone recall a smell?"

"Sure, the smell of blood; it was everywhere," Earl Grey said.

"And there was also the smell of Oil of Violets," Ciel said.

"Oil of Violets?"

"My aunt Frances loves this product called 'Oil of Violets.' She has never forced it on me, but all of her servants are forced to use it, and whenever she visits here, she forces Sebastian to comb his hair back using it. Ghastly stuff and it stinks up the whole house. Sebastian was drenched in it. I wonder what it could mean?"

Nobody had an answer to that, and even if they did, they couldn't say it as Eleanora entered the room. She was dressed in her usual maid's outfit, but she didn't look at all like her usual Eleanora. Her eyes were dull and downcast while her face was blank.

"Eleanora," Ciel said, "tell us what you learned about Sebastian's death."

"Didn't he say that I wasn't allowed to participate?" Even her voice was tired and dull.

"Well, seeing as how he's not _here_ , and as he can't really tell us what to _do_ …"

"I didn't find out anything."

"But…you were there. Didn't you smell him or taste him or see him or _something_?"

"There was such a smell," she said, "that I wasn't able to sense much of anything."

"You mean you don't know anything?"

"I know that he's dead."

"The poor dear," someone whispered.

"Can you think of someone who might want to kill him?" Ciel asked.

"He," Eleanora said shortly, pointing at the Earl Grey. He looked shocked.

" _Me_? Well, I never! My Lord, _do_ something! Allowing a little bastardess to make wild accusations like that! Where's her _proof_?" Earl Grey scowled at her.

"I agree; where's your proof, Eleanora?"

"He's too clean," she said, still in that odd, dull voice. "Everyone else is drenched in fear and nervousness; but he's too clean."

"What a dark day it is," Earl Grey said, "when justice is determined by the cleanliness of a person."

"Please shut up," Eleanora said. "Your voice makes me sick."

"My _voice_?"

"It sounds horrible," she continued, "like trying to play a warped triangle."

The Earl Grey rose up with violence and approached her suddenly, as if he was going to slap her. She remained absolutely still and just blinked up at him.

"I know you did it," she said calmly. "Murderer."

" _Eleanora_!" Ciel said suddenly. "As much as I hate to admit it, Earl Grey is right. You can't go randomly accusing people like that. I understand you're upset, but still, this is no time to give in to our emotions."

Eleanora stared at him. She heard his words, but he was giving her a look. A look that indicated he understood what she was saying and agreed with her, but he couldn't say it out loud. Then he would have to explain all about vampires and demons and things; no one would ever believe him. He had to collect real, tangible evidence. But he trusted her. He believed her.

"Eleanora, I think that you're under a lot of stress," he said gently. "I think you should go to your room."


	55. Chapter 55

Breakfast was solemn, and it turned even grimmer once they all realized that Mr. Phelps—that quiet, unassuming man—had rushed off to his room after seeing Sebastian's corpse and hadn't come back down again.

They ran to the Earl's bedroom—where he had been sleeping—broke down the door, and stared in horror at the floor.

Mr. Phelps was dead.

Arthur—the wordsmith—began examining the body for wounds.

"There doesn't seem to be anything—" he sighed and then stopped. There were four markings on his body: two on his neck, and two on his stomach—two bruises equally spaced apart, as if he had been pierced by something, like a needle.

Or a bite mark.

"Do you suppose it could have been…a… _vampire_?"

"Don't say such things!" Earl Grey snapped, shivering. "Such things don't exist…especially in such an advanced time like this. Vampires don't exist… _right_? The very idea! Heh, heh!"

He seemed nervous, but not as if he was hiding something. More as if he was afraid of vampires.

"There's no use standing around here like this," Ciel sighed. "Let's go back downstairs and see if we can figure something out."

There wasn't much to really 'figure out.' The idea was tossed around that maybe there were two accomplices, but that idea was quickly discarded, as no one could have committed three murders at the times where they had been discovered. Eventually, what really made a difference was who had the key to the Earl's room. The group split up; several stayed upstairs while Ciel, Arthur, and Earl Grey and two servants went downstairs to examine Sebastian's body, looking for the key.

His body was wet, and the key wasn't on him.

Ciel noticed something in his pocket and absentmindedly looked at it. It was a black-and-gold locket, beautiful and elaborate and extremely well-made. He clicked it open.

On the left side of the locket was a small portrait of two people. Ciel recognized one of them: that weird man who had come in to take Charon away when Eleanora had gotten a synesthetic attack—Sebastian's father. He had his arm around the shoulders of a beautiful woman—Sebastian's mother, Ciel assumed. A charming couple.

The right side of the locket had a portrait of Eleanora. She was gazing solemnly at the viewer, the way she normally did. The locket looked a little careworn, as if Sebastian had liked rubbing it and opening it and kissing the portrait of his daughter.

The key hadn't been found. The clothes were put back on the corpse and they went up to his room. Ciel replaced Sebastian's locket as they went back out. He figured that Sebastian would get uncommonly angry if it was missing.

Eleanora was lying down in Sebastian's bed, cuddling her rabbit. She was staring blankly at the wall and only looked up once they had entered.

"I thought I told you to go to your room," Ciel said.

"I wanted to be here," she said, snuggling closer to Sebastian's pillow. "It smells like him."

Ciel didn't argue; the girl had had a shock; she undoubtedly would want to be near her father's presence. Ciel had felt the same when his parents had died.

"By the way, do you know where Sebastian kept the keys?" he asked her as they searched the room.

"No," she said. "He didn't tell me things like that."

"Why not? Aren't you his daughter?" Earl Grey asked, giving her a suspicious glare.

Eleanora remained unfazed.

"After a while, he stopped telling me things like that. He didn't like telling me about his job—something about me 'keeping my innocence' or some other shit like that."

Arthur and Earl Grey stared at each other. They had known such words existed, but they would never have dared to use them, let alone out loud. The fact that a little girl could say something so calmly…Just who _was_ she?

"Well," Ciel sighed, "if you find something out, let us know immediately."

"Yes my Lord," Eleanora said, imitating the butler perfectly.

They began searching his room. Eleanora began half-heartedly playing with her rabbit toy.

"Sheesh, didn't this guy have _any_ personal belongings?" the Earl Grey asked upon opening _another_ drawer full of shirts.

"He did," Eleanora said. "They're in there." She pointed at the wardrobe. "I'm not allowed to look at them. I think he was embarrassed."

Ciel opened the wardrobe…

Cats.

Cats everywhere.

Everyone immediately reacted, save for Eleanora. She just watched the cats run around the room and jump on the bed and meow.

"Don't let any one of these animals leave the room!" Ciel said and sneezed.

Now that the cats had been properly evicted from the wardrobe, Ciel and Arthur were able to properly search it.

At first it seemed to just hold some more tailcoats and shirts and trousers, but then Arthur stretched his hand to feel the back of the wardrobe and felt something else. He dragged whatever-it-was out: a whole pile of huge books.

"My Lord…"

Ciel picked up the top one. It looked brand-new, but was still extremely well-loved. Sebastian seemed to have read and re-read this book over and over and over again. He turned it over to read the cover:

 _Single Father Parenting: Volume 1._

Ciel couldn't hold back a snort. He flipped it open to the first page:

 ** _Single Demon Father Raising a Cambionic Vampire Daughter: Volume 1._**

He didn't understand for a few minutes, but then it suddenly hit him:

The book was disguising itself. If any random human had picked it up and read that it was about demons…Ciel set the book aside and looked through the others. Sebastian seemed to have bought the whole series: volume 1 to 87, with more coming soon.

Ciel suddenly felt a twinge of pity for his butler. Parenting must be so hard.

"There doesn't seem to be anything here," he sighed, standing up. "Let's get back to the others."

Eleanora remained in the butler's room. She stayed there for several hours, petting the cats and burying her face in the pillows until the cook came to get her.

"Sorry to bother you in your grief," he said, "but we need extra hands in the kitchen."

She silently got up and went to the kitchen, where she began helping the servants with the dinner, when she suddenly stopped.

"Lady? What is it?"

"The smell…" she murmured. "It's back."

"Smell? What smell?"

"What the young Master said…What was all over Mr. Michaelis' body…That thing…Oil of Violets!"

Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

The guests, sitting upstairs, were at a complete and total loss. There were no more clues to follow, no more leads to pursue. They needed help. They needed a real expert.

And then the servants burst in.

"Young Master! We found a really suspicious man outside! Get in here, you…"

The stranger was dragged in. The scent of Oil of Violets filled the room.

And a man, soaked from the rain, was staring up at them all.


	56. Chapter 56

They dragged the man back upstairs, to the shock of the guests. Only Ciel didn't seem surprised; he calmly spoke to the man and introduced him as Pastor Jeremy Rathbone. He immediately incorporated—or rather oozed—his way into the group and single-handedly took over the investigation.

Eleanora didn't trust him, mostly because she didn't know him.

She could "know" other people just by looking at them, hearing their voices, smelling their hair…This man was covered, simply _drenched_ , in that _ghastly_ Oil of Violets. The stench was overwhelming; it blocked her nose and prevented her from seeing anything else. Even his voice sounded distorted—like a blank piece of paper. Nothing written on it. Nothing to know.

She didn't trust him, therefore she hated him. It was such a sweet, simple world after all.

Eventually she couldn't stand it; his vile stench confused her mind and made her dizzy. She fled to the kitchen and sat there for several hours, thinking of the butler.

" _There_ you are! I've been looking for you."

It was that voice—that blank, dead tree voice. Oil of Violets aroma clouded up the whole room. She scowled up at the pastor, who smiled back. It was weird looking at him—he had the same black-and-white face that she did. It was unnatural.

"How are you?" he asked softly, sitting across from her. "I've heard about your father. Such a tragedy…"

Eleanora shrugged and looked away.

"I understand that you two didn't have many chances to really get to know one another," he continued. "Do you have anything to remind you of him? Anything?"

"…I have a rabbit."

"That's good!" the man said and stood up. "Are you hungry? The Earl didn't think that you had eaten anything. Perhaps I could make you something." He began opening up cabinets and rifling through the food—the _butler's_ food. He had no right to be there. Eleanora had never wanted to tell someone to piss off so badly.

Her mouth was even opening to tell him such a statement when he pulled out a big, fancy box that smelled particularly delightful. She recognized the box and she recognized the scent. It was with the rabbit toy when she was sick. She had never actually opened it, never uncovered the food inside.

"Do you know what this is?" Jeremy asked her.

She looked away again.

"The butler got it for me," she said shortly, "before he died."

"He must have loved you very much," he said, sitting down next to her and opening up the box. "These are _very_ expensive chocolates."

"Choklits?" Eleanora said. "What's a choklit?"

" _Chocolate_ ," he said and offered her one. She sniffed at it tentatively; it had a strong, peculiar scent; she couldn't tell what went in it; it was too foreign for her. She backed away from it and scowled at him again. So what if the butler had bought it for her? It was this man who was offering it, which made it poison.

He didn't seem offended; he smiled and got a knife from a drawer and cut the choklit in half. He gave the larger half to her and popped the smaller one into his mouth.

"See? It's perfectly safe. Why don't you try it?"

Eleanora examined the choklit. It was an ugly brownish color. She had never liked brown much before.

But the butler had bought it for her. Just for her and only for her. It would be an insult to his memory to refuse to eat it.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and popped it into her mouth.

Jeremy smirked upon seeing her reaction. She had just discovered her third true love.


	57. Chapter 57

The young Master ordered Eleanora upstairs shortly after dinner.

"Lady," he said after she had curtsied to him, "we need your help."

"My help?" she said. "With what?"

"With the murders," Ciel said. "I'm afraid that we have hit a roadblock, and even with Jeremy helping, we might need some assistance. And I know that you could help us."

"But the butler said—"

"—Well, seeing as the butler is no longer _with_ us, I dare say that he can't really _prevent_ us from doing anything, right?" Ciel said as he returned Jeremy's glare.

"I object," the pastor said, standing behind Eleanora and touching her shoulder. "No child should have to assist in a murder case."

"But if the child can _help_ with said murder case?"

"I can handle it without her," Jeremy said firmly. "She doesn't need to be involved."

"But what if she _wants_ to be involved?" Eleanora said, glaring up at the pastor. It wasn't fair. Everyone was treating her like she was a little girl—a mere _child_ —when she most certainly was _not_. She had suffered in her life, and suffering made one stronger. By her calculations, she was an old woman just based on all of the years of suffering that she had gone through. It wasn't fair to have other people—especially weird, bad-smelling pastors—make decisions for her. It didn't matter that he had turned out to be rather nice, what with the choklits and all, but he was still a stranger. Besides, the butler didn't trust religious people and neither did she. "I can do it," she said. "I'd be glad to help. I _want_ to help. Anything to get this nightmare over with as fast as possible."

" _That's_ the spirit," Ciel said, rising up. "Now come on. I want you to look at the bodies."

The first body was of a German man—the first victim. Eleanora knelt down next to him inhaled his scent. He smelled…flowery.

"He didn't die immediately," she said. "He was killed… _later_."

"Really? How later?" Ciel asked.

"…I'm not sure," Eleanora said. "The scent's too old now; it got muddled up with the rest of the other scents."

"Don't tell me that you're basing this whole investigation off of a little girl and her _nose_?" the Earl Grey said in a loud, obnoxious voice.

Eleanora told him to piss off; her nose was doing a hell of a lot more than _he_ was.

"Now, Lady," Jeremy said warningly, but even he couldn't hold back a smirk. Meanwhile, the Earl was shooting daggers at Eleanora, who just blinked as charmingly as she could.

The second victim was a bit more complicated than the other one. He smelled familiar, but he also smelled foreign as well. Worst of all, he also smelled of that dratted Oil of Violets.

" _Everything_ smells of it," she complained to the Earl, but all she could really tell from the second man was that he had died in agony from some sort of poison.

She was going to also examine the butler, but Jeremy stopped her.

"This is where I draw the line," he said firmly. "No child should have to look at their parent's dead body." He gave a pointed look to the Earl, who hesitated, and then nodded.

"Eleanora, go downstairs," he said. "You've done enough."

She curtsied and then left the men to the butler, glad to have escaped seeing his body again. She didn't know how much more Oil of Violets she could take.


	58. Chapter 58

Eleanora had been correct. The pastor had said that the German had first faked his death, where he was then killed for real. The second man—what's-his-name—had died by poisoning. The one who had poisoned him remained unknown. The butler had died because he had discovered something—he had known too much and was then killed for it. If Eleanora had been any younger, any more immature, she would have said that it was a cruel, stupid world. But as she did know better, she realized that death was just a part of life, and even if it was cruel, it most certainly wasn't stupid and she had no right or reason to complain.

The murders had been explained, but who was the murderer? Eleanora still couldn't help but strongly suspect Earl Grey. There was just something about him…Those shifty eyes…That strange smell…That bad attitude…But it wasn't the Earl Grey. It was some weird diamond merchant.

But Eleanora didn't think that it was him, either. True, he did reek of some misdoing, but his crimes weren't recent. They had taken place a long time ago.

Nevertheless, it was the young Master's decision, so she remained quiet until all of the guests had gone. The man had been arrested, the bodies cleared away, all was right with the world again in a way. But as soon as everyone was gone, she darted after the Earl to confront him.

"My Lord, that man was innocent," she said in that special way that she had: matter-of-factly, but also with a hint of, if-you-disagree-with-me-I'll-punch-your-lights-out.

"Who says that he wasn't?" the Earl said, not even looking at her.

"If you knew that he was innocent, why did you allow him to get arrested?"

"Because the real murderer has far more power than I do. Besides, he deserved to get arrested. If it wasn't him, it would be me. It's better this way."

"But…he was innocent…"

"In this case, yes; in others, no."

"So what? He was innocent in this case, which means that…"

" _Eleanora_ ," Ciel said, suddenly turning around, his eye flashing, "for your sake, I suggest you stop talking about it. Don't mention it ever again."

"And why the hell shouldn't I?" Eleanora said, getting angry because she was getting lectured for seemingly no good reason.

"Because maybe you're also not as innocent in this case as you think you are," he said darkly and left.

Eleanora stood there on the stairs, stunned. _"Not as innocent?"_ she thought. _"Not as innocent? How am I at fault here? I didn't do anything! I_ helped _with the case! There is no one here that is more innocent than me!...Except for perhaps the dog, but he doesn't count; he can't even speak…But, still, I…"_

"Are you alright?"

Eleanora jumped and turned around; the pastor was walking down the stairs, smiling at her.

"Don't let him bully you," he said, smoothing her hair in a strangely-familiar way. "He's just a bit rattled from all of these recent events."

"I'm not upset," Eleanora said, lying outright. "And what did he mean, that I'm not as innocent as I might think? Am I not innocent?"

"Of course you're innocent," Jeremy said quickly—far too quickly. "Besides which, it wasn't your fault; you were scared; you're not to blame at all…"

"What do you mean? Explain that."

"Never mind," he said, still in that hurried tone, and checked his watch. "It's getting a bit late and I think that I've overstayed my welcome." His voice had grown calm again. "I had best be going. You take care of yourself, Miss Michaelis."

He knelt down and kissed Eleanora's forehead, which was a strange gesture, but not entirely unwelcome. She only realized that she had started crying when she felt the pastor stroking her back as she sobbed into his shoulder.

"What am I going to do?" she said. "What am I going to do? He's dead. He's _dead_! He was going to take care of me. And now he's dead. What am I going to _do_?"

"The Earl will still allow you to stay on, I'm sure," Jeremy soothed her. "He knows that you're a hard, competent worker."

"But…But…"

"Don't worry about it," he said and kissed her again. "Things will always be better in the end."

And he left the manor with a smile and a wave and that piece of advice which Eleanora didn't think helped matters much.

She sat down on the stairs and stared at the front door, half-wishing that the pastor would come back and talk to her again. She wished that he had kissed her for a third time. It was funny how she used to hate the butler's incessant kissings and fawnings but now that he was gone, she missed them so much. She couldn't help but think that it all wasn't fair, even though she knew that life itself wasn't fair. She felt so tired. She just wanted to go to sleep.

But now there wasn't a butler to carry her upstairs, humming a lullaby, tucking her in, kissing her goodnight, checking up on her every half-hour or so to make sure that she was still there, still safe, giving her back her stuffed bunny if it had fallen down on the floor and then creeping away, as if he didn't know that she had woken up the instant he had opened the door and didn't want to wake her.

Eleanora buried her face in her hands and choked back some more bloody tears. When was the last time she had seen him? She thought back. She had seen his dead body…She had run into that one man…She had been woken up by the feeling that something was wrong…

She suddenly felt very cold. _She had run into that one man, that man who had died by poisoning_.

Hadn't she bitten him? It was all coming back to her; she hadn't had a chance to properly remember due to everything else that had been happening; but now she remembered, oh god, she remembered everything.

She had bitten that man in the stomach. The butler had even warned her about it. He had said that she could bite someone out of self-defense and accidentally poisoning them. That was exactly what had happened. She had panicked and had bitten that man and now he was dead. He was dead because of her. She was no better than the butler, the man who had murdered her mother. She was just as much of a murderer as he was.

But what about those other marks on his body? She had only bitten him once; she _knew_ that she had only bitten him once. So maybe she hadn't killed him after all! Maybe someone else had poisoned him. It was plausible.

Feeling much better about things, she rose up and remembered that the butler was dead and she had no one. Again dejected, she swore at nothing and went down to the kitchen to prepare the afternoon tea.


	59. Chapter 59

Sebastian had never wanted to kill anyone. That had never been his intention. He had just wanted to keep the murder suspect list as far away from the young Master as possible without anyone finding out that he wasn't actually dead. That was it.

And then Eleanora came in.

The man wouldn't have died instantly. The poison that she had accidentally put into his bloodstream when she had bitten him was very slow-acting, and would cause a painless death. She was sometimes so merciful he wondered if she truly was his daughter. He hoped that she hadn't inherited any silly human sentimentality. But it didn't matter that the death would be slow and painless. If the man died shortly after the Phantomhive murders, suspicion would be immediately turned back onto the Earl. And this time, there would be no convenient man to frame for it.

He had snuck up behind the bitten one and had injected him with a poison which immediately stopped his heart. For good measure, he stuck him with it twice to make it seem as if he had gotten bitten—or injected—by the person who had also done the same on his stomach. Then he left the body just lying around and continued with his mission.

The only real problem was Eleanora. Sebastian was proud of her and her intellect, but she was showing herself off in the most inconvenient time. He knew that she would be able to tell instantly that he was still alive upon seeing his corpse. His only chance at getting by her was covering himself with that _ghastly_ Oil of Violets—just one dab could have covered the scent of a huge cemetery filled with rotting corpses. And _then_ he had to cover himself with it _again_ , this time as Pastor Jeremy. He was glad to be of some comfort to his little girl, although it gave him great pain to see her so sad. There were so many times that he had wanted to take off his mask and say,

"Great news, I'm not actually dead! Now don't cry for me anymore, okay?"

but that might have ruined the whole thing.

And _then_ the young Master came in.

Sebastian was still outraged that the young Master had so blatantly disregarded his last wishes (not really, but who cared at this point). He had _explicitly_ told him that he didn't want Eleanora getting involved in the murders. She was already involved enough already; her father had just been killed after all (not really, but again, who really cared)—and _what_ did the young Master do? Get her more involved! Sebastian was sorely tempted to put laxatives in the tea again, and serve him right too.

But it had all turned out for the better. Now all he had to do was get through the funeral.

Funerals were boring. They were even worse than weddings. At least with weddings, all one really had to do was wait for it to be over, because then there would be the after-party. There was no after-party for a funeral in the human world for some inexplicable reason. Sebastian missed Hell. There was always an after-party in Hell.

The most boring part to play in a funeral was being the corpse. A corpse couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't smile reassuringly at his poor little kitten, who was following the coffin, looking more dead than the actual dead body.

Getting buried alive caused a little claustrophobia, but nothing he couldn't handle. Mostly he was just waiting for it to be over.

It took them much longer to dig him back out than burying him. Sebastian hoped that that wasn't a commentary on his personality.

Everyone hugged him upon realizing that he was alive and didn't question the fact that he had somehow spent several days in a mansion with a murderer as a corpse, only to come back alive at the funeral.

Eleanora didn't say anything to him, didn't hug him or anything, but when they were walking back to the manor, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it.


	60. Chapter 60

It had been about six months since Eleanora had arrived at Phantomhive. Ciel couldn't sleep; he had gotten a bit sick and his stuffed-up nose was keeping him awake. He stared up at the ceiling and thought about all that had happened in those six months.

First, it turned out that Sebastian had a daughter. More than that, she was a cambion, an illegitimate unholy child. Even now, Ciel was surprised that such a proud, dignified man like his butler could have such a thing. Then the girl was taken away by Madam Red, where Grell attacked her and she ended back up at Phantomhive, where Sebastian demonstrated his horrible parenting skills and she was taken to child services, where Sebastian demonstrated his terrific parenting skills and got her back out again.

And _then_ Eleanora's cambionic vessel came and tried to kidnap her…and then kidnap her again…and finally kill her, and Sebastian retaliated by killing the vessel, and then Eleanora retaliated by running away and living with Sebastian's parents for two weeks until Sebastian came and got her again.

And then there was that whole issue with the dog…and then there was her illness…and then the whole murder-mansion party. That had been fun.

And in-between all of those adventures, the time had still managed to pass, and now it was Christmastime. Ciel rolled over and looked out the window. It was snowing. He wondered if Eleanora had ever seen snow. Then he wondered if she had ever had a Christmas. He yawned and closed his eyes. Well, if she hadn't had a Christmas before, she was most certainly going to have one now. Sebastian was definitely going to see to that. Who knew that his butler could be such a fawning, spoiling man? Ciel wondered what Eleanora was doing right at that moment. Probably getting into trouble. Children always did.

Eleanora was sitting on the roof of the Phantomhive manor, watching the snow fall. The clumps of snowflakes felt nice. Nice and cold. She loved the cold. Heat had various degrees of temperature, but cold was always cold—just cold, and that was it. It was so very comforting.

The snowflakes murmured softly as they fell down. They were quietly repeating the steps that they had to take as they danced to the ground.

 _"One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three_ …"

Eleanora rose up and brushed the snowflakes off of her. It was slow-going; she was so cold that the snowflakes didn't melt at her touch or when they came into contact with her skin. Eventually she gave up and went back down into the manor, looking less like Eleanora and more like a little ice sculpture—an ice sculpture carved for Halloween, of course; she never would achieve that cute adorableness that so many other little girls had.

She didn't want to stay all alone in her little room. She went down to the real servants' quarters and politely knocked on the butler's door. He didn't answer; she entered the room anyway.

He was lying on the bed, absolutely exhausted. He had fallen asleep halfway through taking off his clothes, so his tailcoat was still lying in a very undignified manner on the floor, his tie was loose, his shirt was partially unbuttoned, and he wasn't wearing one of his socks.

Eleanora jumped up on the bed and curled up next to him, like a freezing kitten. Sebastian smiled in his sleep and instinctively held her closer. Eleanora looked up at him and his smile and wondered what he was going to do when he woke up.

" _Probably get into trouble,"_ she decided. " _Adults always did_."

And then she fell asleep.


	61. Chapter 61

Phantomhive always hosted three parties at Christmastime: one for orphaned children, one for noble children, and one just for Phantomhive. Naturally, three parties at one time needed quite a lot of preparation, so there was a lot of running around. Everyone was too busy or too stressed to really think about the true meaning of Christmas (if there even was such a thing, which Ciel doubted).

Eleanora thought that that was a damned shame. She was—surprisingly—fond of Christmas. She remembered Christmastime with her mother—before she had arrived at Phantomhive. Everyone was always so much more generous at Christmas. There would be much more food given to the poor from churches, more people would give money to the beggars…Back in those days, Christmas meant unnatural wealth and goodness, and it only came once a year, so it was something very sacred and precious.

How things had changed since those times. Now, all the luxuries that used to be found only at Christmas were commonplace. Now, three hot meals a day were usual, not special. Now, having a fire to curl up and sleep in front of was normal. Now she didn't need to go to the streets and beg. Now she was getting paid and had a Christmas vacation.

Sebastian said that they would go back to Hell as soon as the Christmas vacation would start, even though Christmas would technically be over when the vacation came. The young Master wouldn't allow his servants to take off until all of the parties had been concluded satisfactorily. But Eleanora didn't mind—Madam Red said that they all celebrated Phantomhive's Christmas party together. She couldn't wait. There would be breakfast and lunch and dinner…And oh yes, maybe a present or something like that. The Earl had told her that a burglar would come down the chimney and give presents to good children and then steal the milk and the cookies. Eleanora would much rather have preferred the milk and the cookies and the burglar could keep the presents, but Sebastian wasn't particularly supportive of her idea to put an iron grating over all the chimneys in the house.

"But…But…The _food_!"

"Don't worry about the food," Sebastian assured her. "There's always plenty of food in the house at this time of year; we can afford to lose some cookies."

Eleanora stopped worrying about the burglar when she saw the young Master pick out the cookies that they were going to leave for him. He chose only the ones that he liked, which meant that he was probably planning on eating them himself. And if there were no cookies in the house, the burglar wouldn't come. He would steal someone else's cookies.

Sebastian said that that wasn't _quite_ how it worked, but didn't elaborate further.

"But, darling, don't you want a present?"

"I'd prefer food."

"You already _have_ food. Don't you want something else?"

"Charon! I'd want Charon back. Do you think that the burglar will bring him?"

"Sweetheart, there _is_ no burglar. It's just a story that parents tell their children to keep the magic alive at Christmas."

"Oh." She thought about it. "So I won't see Charon?"

"You'll see him again when we go back to Hell."

"And there will be no burglar?"

"If there will be, I'll stop him from taking anything valuable."

Eleanora nodded solemnly.

"Like the goose," she said. "The goose is the most valuable thing in this house."

Sebastian wondered if he was doing something wrong. Most children he knew didn't value food so highly.

The first party—the one for the orphaned children—arrived. Eleanora was allowed to attend this one; Sebastian cleaned her black maid dress and curled her hair and tied a bow so that she looked very nice—like a haunted doll. Ciel didn't attend; he just watched the proceedings and made a couple of speeches. Eleanora enjoyed herself very much; the orphans loved food just as much as she did and they didn't find her skeletal appearance at all disturbing. She danced with them and laughed and was honestly sorry when the party was over. She wasn't much for social engagements, but she had actually had fun.

The party for orphans was a far cry from the party for the noble children.

Sebastian dressed her up again, only this time, she was in full maid regalia; her hair wasn't curled and there wasn't a bow this time. She felt very stiff and awkward and spent most of the party in the shadows, quietly putting more sandwiches on the refreshment table and walking around with a platter of sparkling grape juice. The noble children mostly ignored her, and the ones who did notice her weren't nice at all. There was one boy who tried tripping her, and laughed and said that she was ugly. Eleanora sorely wanted to punch him in the face, but the Earl (who was forced to attend this one) intervened just in time and told Eleanora to go make some more sandwiches. She was relieved when this party was over.

Then Christmas came—the _real_ Christmas. The beginning of the day hadn't been particularly festive. Breakfast and lunch were just the leftovers from the first two parties and nobody did anything. They were all taking a break from the stress of the other parties. Eleanora spent the day wandering around the manor, looking for something that could be vaguely interpreted as Christmas-like. It was snowing outside, which made everything all nice and pretty, and the Earl and his aunt were playing chess with the dog asleep in front of the fire, which was very quaint and domestic, but there was nothing particularly _magical_ about any of it. Eleanora was disappointed. She had always attributed Christmas with wonder and joy and all that, and here everyone was, lying around and doing nothing.

"Sweetheart, don't worry about it," Sebastian told her. He was lying on his bed, reading and stroking a cat that he had managed to sneak into the manor. "Come here and sit with me for a bit."

Eleanora obediently crawled onto his bed and snuggled under his arm. He read her a bit from his book (she didn't understand it very much; from what she gathered, it was about some bum who got lost in Hell and was journeying through it) and when she got bored of sitting around and doing nothing, she went outside to play in the snow.

Night fell and she went back inside. The butler didn't like her out at night, especially in the wintertime. He said that she would catch her death of cold, which was naturally ridiculous.

There was no one around. She peeked into the butler's room—the cat was still there, purring contentedly when she petted it, but no butler. No servants anywhere. Perhaps they were all upstairs.

Everyone—servants, nobles, demon hounds—was in the ballroom, where a huge tree had somehow gotten erected and then decorated. Sebastian was playing a song on the piano and Grell was crooning along. Every now and then, she sat down next to him on the bench and tried scooting closer to him, and every time Sebastian would push her back off. He looked up when Eleanora entered.

"There you are! I was just about to call you."

Eleanora approached cautiously and sat down next to him on the bench. Everyone was talking and laughing and they all looked so happy…The room was full of happiness; she could actually _see_ it swirling around the room, a bright green strip of joy.

There was dancing and food and Madam Red read something out of a book. Eleanora wasn't really paying attention (she was too busy savoring the remains of the meal) but from what she gathered, it was about some old man who hated Christmas and then saved some little boy's life because some ghosts told him to. Eleanora wondered if the author was confusing Christmas for Halloween, but she enjoyed the story nonetheless.

Then the presents were distributed. Sebastian's presents consisted mostly of gloves. Eleanora was given another box full of expensive chocolate, an artist's kit, and one of Funtom's rabbit toys. She thought that it was a very satisfactory Christmas and smiled all throughout it.

The Christmas party ended and people began to retire.

"Oh, don't bother with cleaning things," Madam Red said. "It's Christmas! It can wait."

Eleanora was carried downstairs by Sebastian; she was on the verge of falling asleep.

"Well? Did you enjoy that?" Sebastian asked her.

"Hm? Oh yes. It was lovely."

"It's not over yet," Sebastian said and opened up the door to his room.

There was another Christmas party inside. There was even a tiny decorated tree in the corner, whose effect was slightly overpowered by the sheer amount of presents in the room.

"What's all this?" Eleanora asked as Sebastian set her down.

"Oh, just some things that my family sent over," Sebastian said, sitting down next to her. "They've always had a habit of going over the top."

"But…Aren't we visiting Hell soon anyway? Why all these things now?"

"Oh, they'll give us more things when we get there as well," Sebastian said. "They just love spoiling each other."

Most of the presents were for Eleanora and from people that she hadn't met yet: Sebastian's aunts, uncles, her great-grandparents (Sebastian's grandparents); Jean had sent her a photo album consisting entirely of pictures of Charon with his paw print on the very last page, as if her dog had sent it to her.

There were so many presents! Eleanora had no idea that someone like her could even _get_ so many presents. There was a dollhouse of the Phantomhive manor, complete with figurines of the Earl, Sebastian, Eleanora, and all the rest of them; there were three porcelain dolls complete with trunks full of magnificent clothing; there was an enormous teddy bear which filled up a whole corner of the room.

(Sebastian was given more practical things, including warm socks and the 88th volume of parenting.)

All of the presents were opened and Eleanora leaned against Sebastian, blissfully warm and sleepy. She was cuddling another of her presents—a cute stuffed cat—while Sebastian was flipping through the parenting book.

"Well, darling," he said, kissing her, "are you satisfied? Was that a happy Christmas?"

"Mm…yes," she murmured. And she suddenly sat bolt upright. "But what about _you_? Did you get everything that you wanted?"

Sebastian looked surprised, and then laughed.

"Of course I did. I got _you_ , and that's more than enough for me."

"That's not much of a present," Eleanora frowned.

"I disagree. It's a _very_ good present."

"Hmm…" Eleanora said, and then she suddenly stood up. "Wait here. I have to get something."

She ran upstairs to her room and came down several minutes later, holding a covered canvas.

"The young Lord gave me tools to do this," she mumbled, giving the canvas open. "I…guess it's for you…or something. Happy Christmas."

Sebastian smiled at her and removed the sheet. It was a portrait of him.

It really was quite magnificent. It was just of him with a tray, being the butler. But there was something else about it…Something about the shadows…Or maybe it was the reds that she had woven into the paint that made the portrait seem more vivid. More…demonic.

There was something written on the back of the canvas: the name of the portrait.

"DADDY."

Sebastian looked at the portrait, looked at the name, and then looked away.

"What? What is it? Is something wrong? Didn't you like it?" Eleanora got the feeling that she had done something very, very wrong.

Sebastian forced a laugh and pressed his hand over his eyes.

"No, no, I'm sorry; I must have gotten something in my eyes…"

He turned to look at her, smiling.

"It's perfect," he said. "When we get home, I'll make sure that this is hung up somewhere special. Thank you."

Eleanora fell asleep in Sebastian's arms; he tucked her into his bed and crawled in next to her.

He didn't go to sleep immediately; he looked at all of the presents sprawled around the room, at the little tree in the corner, at the portrait leaning against the wall. He thought about the young Master and his mouth immediately began to salivate, as it always did whenever he remembered his soul. Being a butler was hard. But then again, being a parent was harder. Sebastian looked down at the sleeping girl—his daughter. She had grown so much but she was still so tiny. Again he thought about the young Master's soul. Being a butler was hard, but the end would be so rewarding. Maybe there was a metaphor in that: being a parent was also hard, but the end, too, would be also so rewarding.

As he looked down on Eleanora again, he had the vaguest idea that—somehow—it would be more rewarding than finally eating that little brat's soul.

He held her close; she smiled in her sleep; and then he also closed his eyes.

THE END.

 _Author's Note:_

 _Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please look up my other stories! Thanks again!_


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